The only Briton confirmed to have died in the terror attacks in Bombay gave a harrowing account of the unfolding drama just moments before he was shot dead.

Andreas Liveras, 73, a British yachting tycoon who emigrated from Cyprus to London in 1963, telephoned the BBC from a locked room in the Taj Mahal Palace hotel as terrorists fired AK47 automatic rifles and set off grenades outside.

“The hotel is shaking every time a bomb goes off,” he said. “Everybody is just living on their nerves.”

Hours later, at 9.30pm local time, Mr Liveras was pronounced dead by doctors at St George’s hospital. The circumstances of his death remain unclear, but a hospital spokesman said that he had been shot “multiple times”.

The self-made millionaire, who ran a chartered yacht company based in Monaco and was in Bombay for a trade show, had described earlier to the BBC how he and other guests were locked in the basement of the hotel for their own protection.

“There must be more than 1,000 people here,” he said. “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.All we know is the bombs are next door and the hotel is shaking.”

Mr Liveras said that he had visited the hotel on Wednesday for a curry after hearing that it served the best food in Bombay.

He might have escaped death if he had been carrying his Cypriot passport, family members said last night. “But he never took it with him,” Theophanis Liveras, his brother, told The Times. The terrorists had separated British and American passport holders, he said. Just hours earlier, Mr Liveras had called his son, Dion, in England to say that he was safe and being well treated.

“He was in a good frame of mind,” his brother said.

Mr Liveras’s British assistant was one of the hostages picked out for execution but he managed to escape, despite suffering gunshot wounds. He was being treated for serious wounds in hospital in Bombay last night. The assistant called Mr Liveras’s family in England to alert them to his plight without knowing his fate.

Theophanis, who lives in Nicosia, Cyprus, called Mr Liveras’s mobile phone, which was answered by an Indian woman who shocked him by shouting: “He’s been shot.”

Phaedonas Anastasiou, a Cypriot Foreign Ministry official, said: “He was executed in cold blood and he was carrying a British passport.”

The victim was the first of nine children born to a shepherd in Cyprus.His brother said: “His death is a terribly unfair loss. If he had been killed in an accident, for example on his private plane, I could have understood that. But this is so utterly unfair.”

Mr Liveras is survived by three daughters and a son who all live in England.

In his online biography, Mr Liveras described his life as a “classic rags-to-riches tale”. When he arrived in London he worked for a small bakery as a delivery man but later bought the business, transforming it into one of largest independent manufacturers of frozen gateaux in Europe. It was later sold for millions, allowing him to move into the yachting business.

Times Recommends

• Rio Tinto four held as China prepares case
• Diplomats must keep heads down and trousers up
• When in Rome should one make like Berlusconi?