A judge presiding over the hearings of fugitive Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky's libel action against a Russian TV broadcaster, VGTRK, denied media reports that he demanded the channel to reveal its sources.
On February 8, VGTRK officially stated that it will not recognize any court rulings on this case and will appeal them up to the European Court, saying the court process that started in the London's High Court early last week was "biased" and "politically tinted."
It said that the British court had demanded that VGTRK reveal its information sources, and after the TV company refused, the court banned the broadcaster from taking part in the court process.
The judge dismissed the information as "groundless" during the trial on Thursday, saying the reason behind the ban was that VGTRK rejected any contacts with the court or Berezovsky's lawyers.
London-based Berezovsky, wanted in Russia on charges of fraud and a coup plot, filed a lawsuit against the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK) and against an individual, Vladimir Terluk, in May 2007 after a TV program accused him of involvement in the poisoning of ex-Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer Alexander Litvinenko and of forging a recording to avoid extradition.
Litvinenko died in London in November 2006 of polonium-210 poisoning. On his deathbed, he accused then Russian president Vladimir Putin of orchestrating his death, which the Kremlin strongly denied.
Terluk appears to have been featured in a TV broadcast in April 2007 on the RTR Planeta channel, available in Britain via satellite, as a man named "Pyotr" interviewed by the Vesti Nedeli (News of the Week) program.
LONDON, February 12 (RIA Novosti)
