A 73-year-old Cypriot émigré who made a fortune chartering luxury yachts was named tonight as the only Briton known to have been killed in the Bombay terror attacks.

The city's St George's hospital confirmed that Andreas Liveras died last night after receiving multiple gunshot wounds at the Taj Palace Hotel. He had gone to the hotel for a meal.

Mr Liveras moved to Britain in 1963 and built up an estimated fortune of £315 million. He was ranked 265 in this year's Sunday Times Rich List.

As the attacks unfolded Mr Liveras had given an interview to the BBC from the Taj and said that he was among a big group hiding in a basement.

He said that he had chosen the hotel because it was said to have Bombay's best restaurant. "But as soon as we sat at the table we heard the machine gun fire outside in the corridor," he said.

"We hid ourselves under the table and then they switched all the lights off. But the machine guns kept going and they took us into the kitchen, and from there into a basement, before we came up into a salon where we are now.

"There must be more than 1,000 people here. There are residents and tourists and locals. We are not hiding, we are locked in here - nobody tells us anything, the doors are locked and we are inside. Hotel staff are helping us a lot providing water and sandwiches - but nobody is eating really, people are frightened.

"At this moment it's very quiet. The last bomb exploded about 45 minutes ago and it shook the hotel up. Nobody comes in this room and nobody goes out and we don't really know.

"All we know is the bombs are next door and the hotel is shaking every time a bomb goes off. Everybody is just living on their nerves."

According to Mr Liveras's biography on his company website, his was a "classic rags-to-riches tale".

After arriving in London, he took a job as a deliveryman for the small Fleur de Lys bakery in Kensington, but stepped up to take over the business five years later. He sold it to Express Dairies in 1985 in an "eight-figure deal" after making it one of the largest manufacturers of frozen cakes in Europe.

Thereafter he indulged his passion for yachts, buying successively larger boats. The company now owns two of the most luxurious charter yachts in the world, the 85-m Alysia and 90-m Lauren, both of them equipped with health clubs, pools, libraries and helicopter landing pads. The boats cost more than £500,000 a week to charter.

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