Berezovsky rebuked over call to oust Putin
By Alan Cowell
Boris Berezovsky, the self-exiled Russian tycoon, received sharp rebukes from London and Moscow on Friday after he urged the forceful removal of Vladimir Putin as the president of Russia and a new revolution there.
Referring to Putin’s government in an interview in The Guardian on Friday, Berezovsky said, “We need to use force to change this regime, because this regime is anti-constitutional.” Asked if he was seeking to foment revolution, he declared, “You are absolutely correct.”
The British Foreign Office, seeking to avoid friction with Moscow, took umbrage at the comments, saying through a spokesman that it “deplored anyone who uses their residence in the U.K. as a platform to call for the violent overthrow of a sovereign government.”
Officials in Moscow responded swiftly to Berezovsky’s comments, with the Kremlin and the Foreign Ministry denouncing them as unlawful and demanding again that Britain arrest and extradite Berezovsky.The Prosecutor General’s Office in Moscow said Friday that it had opened an investigation under Article 278 of the country’s criminal code, which covers unconstitutional seizure of power.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/13/africa/putin.php