A former head of the Northern Administrative District of Moscow who is accused of swindling Yelena Baturina out of 1 billion rubles said on Thursday he had been granted political asylum in Lithuania.
Yury Khardikov was dismissed as prefect of Moscow's northern district at the end of 2008. Baturina, the billionaire wife of former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov, accused Khardikov of selling her a plot of land in Sochi in 2007 despite knowing it was subject to a court order. The former city official says he could not have known about the court decision as it was taken after the land was sold.
"We must pay tribute to Lithuania, which has embraced European standards of respect for human rights and personal freedoms," Khardikov told RIA Novosti on Thursday. "They deliberated for a long time, but in the end still decided to grant me asylum."
A Tver court in 2009 sanctioned the arrest in absentia of Khardikov, who legally resided in Lithuania, where he has business interests. He said that despite Luzhkov's dismissal as Moscow mayor, he still could not be sure of a fair trial because of corruption in Russia's law enforcement structures.
He challenged the legality of his arrest in absentia in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg last September and maintains the criminal case against him is fabricated.
He said on Thursday he would now move his entire family to Lithuania.
"In Russia, I have six children, two grandchildren, an aging mother, and in Lithuania - freedom, support, friends and guaranteed rights. Tomorrow we will go to the migration service and file the necessary documents for the members of my family to get residence permits," Khardikov said.
After he was fired by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Luzhkov asked the Latvian authorities for a residence permit but his request is thought to have been denied. British media reports in early February said he had also sought permission to live in Britain.
VILNIUS, March 3 (RIA Novosti)
