The murder of a second Russian dissident on British soil was averted last month when police and intelligence agencies intercepted a suspected killer in London, it was confirmed last night.

In a move likely to damage already strained relations between Britain and Russia, Scotland Yard said that officers arrested a man on suspicion of conspiracy to murder on June 21 and held him for two days. He was later handed over to the immigration service and deported back to Russia.

The man arrived in London in mid-June allegedly with orders to murder the billionaire Russian exile Boris Berezovsky, a staunch opponent of President Putin, who has been granted asylum to live in Britain.

The alleged murder plot would have been planned as Tony Blair, then the Prime Minister, held a tense meeting with Mr Putin at the G8 summit in Germany on June 8. It came in the wake of the British Government’s formal request to Russia for the extradition of Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB operative, for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the dissident, in London in November last year. The Russians have refused to extradite Mr Lugovoy.

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BACKGROUND

• Lies and the spies: I must have justice

• Shadowy ex-KGB major takes cover

• Of course the Russians did it. They’re the experts

• The Litvinenko File

• Litvinenko was told that he was marked for death

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• Moscow revives history of silencing enemies

Yesterday Mr Berezovsky blamed Mr Putin personally for the failed murder plot. He also repeated the charge that the Russian leader was responsible for the murder of Litvinenko, the former Russian intelligence officer killed by a lethal dose of polonium-210, a radioactive isotope. “It is Putin personally behind this plot, Litvinenko and mine,” said Mr Berezovsky.

However, in a letter to The Times, Yury Fedotov, the Russian Ambassador to London, said that it was preposterous to assert that the killing of Litvinenko “appears to have the clear backing of the Russian Government”.

He wrote: “The Russian Government values its relations with the UK and respects its laws and con- stitutional arrangements.”

British officials yesterday would not comment about the latest allegations. But the incident almost certainly influenced the decision taken this week by Gordon Brown to expel four Russian diplomats from London because of Moscow’s failure to hand over the chief suspect in the Litvinenko murder.

In the latest case, MI5 and MI6 had been alerted to the plot and were awaiting the man’s arrival in Britain. He was identified as he arrived on June 16 at Heathrow and placed under round-the-clock surveillance. He checked into the Hilton hotel on Park Lane close to Mr Berezovsky’s offices in Mayfair. He was accompanied by a young boy, apparently as cover for his mission.

According to intelligence sources, “the surveillance appeared to corroborate the prior intelligence” of the murder plot. The arrival of the would-be killer led police to advise Mr Berezovsky to leave the country for a period. He left the same day, June 16.

Five days later the suspect was arrested by officers from the Scotland Yard Counter Terrorism Command on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. He was questioned for two days but there was insufficient evidence to proceed to a prosecution.

He was released on June 23 into the custody of the immigration service. Officials revoked his visa and he was placed on a flight to Moscow. Sources said that he would be unable to get another visa for at least ten years.

While the police would not go into detail, the statement appeared to corroborate allegations made earlier by Mr Berezovsky, who claimed that he had narrowly escaped the same fate as Mr Litvinenko, also an outspoken critic of Mr Putin. The 61-year-old tycoon said that he had first received a warning three months ago from Russian contacts with connections to the FSB, the successor to the KGB.

“They told me the FSB were creating a plot to kill me,” he said. “They told me someone who knew me would travel to London, and would call to meet me, and he would kill me and would not try to hide.

“He would explain that it was for business reasons, he had a problem with me in business, and he decided to kill me, and he will get 20 years,” said Mr Berezovsky. “He will spend ten years in jail, will be released, will have a lot of money, and be a hero of Russia. I didn’t take it seriously, but what happened is exactly what they said.”

Mr Berezovsky said that he had received a similar warning from police in 2002. He said that the Kremlin was trying to eliminate him because he had spent $300 million-$400million funding groups opposed to Mr Putin.

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