TBILISI, September 20 (RIA Novosti) - The Georgian Interior Ministry has denied media reports that fugitive Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky possibly visited Georgia last week.

On Saturday various media outlets published reports that Berezovsky was in Georgia on September 11, met with representatives of the country's authorities and paid a visit to the grave of his business partner Badri Patarkatsishvili.

"No, this is not true," Shota Utiashvili, the head of the ministry's information department, said regarding the media reports.

Over a dozen criminal probes have been launched in Russia against Berezovsky, a one-time close associate of late president Boris Yeltsin, including plotting to stage a coup and embezzling $13 million from a leading Russian bank.

His late business partner Patarkatsishvili, who financed the opposition and had planned to run in the January 2008 presidential polls which returned President Mikheil Saakashvili to power, died in February last year at his home near London. His death was not treated as suspicious by the British authorities.