THE exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky is fighting the widow of his closest friend for half the dead man’s £6 billion fortune.

Relations between Berezovsky and Ina Gudavadze, whose husband Badri Patarkatsishvili was his business partner for 20 years, have broken down 12 months after the Georgian billionaire died, aged 52, at Downside Manor, his mansion in Surrey. He had told friends he feared the authorities in Tbilisi were plotting to kill him.

All contact between the two sides is now through lawyers as they battle over property left by the man Berezovsky described last week as the person “closest to me in the whole world”.

The tycoon has asked a London court to appoint an independent executor to establish how his friend’s fortune should be divided up. The case follows wrangling between Gudavadze, Berezovsky and other potential beneficiaries in what has become an increasingly bitter dispute.

Berezovsky claims he is entitled to half Patarkatsishvili’s assets. Gudavadze believes the two friends had split their business interests long before her husband died.

“This is very sad indeed. Berezovsky and Ina have not spoken for months. They’ve fallen out big time. They used to be closer than family,” said a source close to both parties.

Patarkatsishvili, a secretive figure who rarely gave interviews, died unexpectedly last February after he had announced he would stand for the Georgian presidency. At the time there were suggestions that he may have been poisoned but Surrey police concluded that he had died of a heart attack.

The day after his death, Berezovsky asked Gudavadze to sign a statement acknowledging that half her husband’s assets belonged to him. The widow, who is represented by Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney-general, signed but has since changed her mind and sought to have the document annulled.

“Long before Badri died he and Berezovsky announced they were dividing their business interests. They were still friends but were divorcing as partners,” said an adviser to Gudavadze. “All she is asking for is some proof. She’s happy to share any assets once proof has been provided.” Last week Berezovsky hit back. “Sadly, Ina is under the influence of people who are trying to cash in,” he said. “Badri would be very saddened by this but it’s not my fault. I’m taking legal action to protect my interests and get what’s mine.”

Berezovsky, 63, and the mustachioed Patarkatsishvili met in the dying days of the Soviet Union. The two friends started by importing cars and built up a business empire with interests in oil, aluminium, car-making and the media.

Known to insiders simply as “Badri and Borya”, they became two of Russia’s most powerful figures. “Badri was the muscle,” recalled a friend. “Borya would have an idea and Badri would put it into practice. They were a brilliant combination.”

They holidayed together on their yachts in the south of France and the Caribbean. In Moscow, ringed with bodyguards, they could be found at Berezovsky’s private offices in a tsarist mansion known as “the club” where politicians queued for an audience.

Patarkatsishvili and Berezovsky fled Russia in 2001 after falling out with Vladimir Putin, Russia’s former president and its current prime minister. At first Berezovsky had backed Putin but he later became a fierce critic, which encouraged prosecutors to charge the pair the executor of his estate andwith fraud and embezzlement.

Last week Berezovsky denied that he and Patarkatsishvili had ever divided their assets. “Once outside Russia we made an announcement that we were divorcing because I was actively involved in politics and my clash with the Kremlin was seriously damaging our interests,” he said.

“It was a ruse, a public gesture meant for the Kremlin so it would back off. No real steps were ever taken to split our business. That’s easy to prove.”

After fleeing Russia, Patarkatsishvili divided his time between Surrey and his native Georgia. In Tbilisi, the capital, he bought the city’s biggest building, the Soviet Wedding Palace, and turned it into a lavish headquarters. Inside, black and white swans swam on an ornamental lake and the building featured a 50ft aquarium, a planetarium and a replica of the billionaire’s birthplace.

To complicate matters further, Joseph Kay, a step-cousin of Patarkatsishvili, claims to be the executor of his estate and insists that part of the fortune belongs to him. Gudavadze and Berezovsky have accused Kay of fraud and say the documents he has produced are forgeries. Kay denies any wrongdoing.

Patarkatsishvili, who rarely documented his deals, does not appear to have left a will. Teams of lawyers have spent the last year tracking down assets and bank accounts across the world. Both friends and relatives of the tycoon are suspicious of Kay’s claims.

A Russian woman named Olga Safonova has also claimed that she married Patarkatsishvili in 1997 and bore him a son.

Gudavadze, who has two daughters by him, only heard about Safonova after his death and has had that marriage annulled by a Russian court. Sources close to Gudavadze said she would provide for the son.

Other friends say that Berezovsky, who recently sold his yacht, has been short of funds since Patarkatsishvili’s death. The tycoon denies the claim.

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