"The Federal Security Service Investigations Department continues to pursue the criminal case against Boris Berezovsky on charges of attempting to seize power by force, violating the Russian Constitution, and using the mass media to call for extremist actions," the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office said.
A lawyer for Berezovsky, Andrei Borovkov, said Monday that prosecutors had put his client's case on hold.
Russian prosecutors opened a criminal case against Berezovsky, 60, after he told a radio station in January 2006 that he was planning to topple President Vladimir Putin. He fled to the U.K. in 2000 to escape fraud charges and was granted political refugee status there.
In an interview with Ekho Moskvy, Berezovsky, who was extremely influential under President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s but fell out with the Kremlin when Putin took power, said that the current president had violated the Constitution, and that any violent action on the opposition's part would be justified.
"That includes taking power by force, which is exactly what I am working on," he said.
The British foreign secretary warned the businessman against such statements at the time, saying his status as a political refugee could be reviewed.
The statement prompted Russian prosecutors, who had unsuccessfully sought the controversial tycoon's extradition on fraud charges, to reinvigorate demands that he be returned to Russia.
British courts have repeatedly turned down Russia's extradition requests, citing Berezovsky's refugee status, and the businessman has dismissed the charges as politically motivated.
The U.K. is also home to more than a dozen suspects wanted in Russia in connection with economic crimes, including individuals involved in the long-running case involving the bankrupt oil company Yukos.
The country also harbors Ahmed Zakayev, a Chechen separatist emissary wanted in Russia on terrorism charges.
