Berezovsky, 60, is wanted by the Russian authorities on fraud and corruption charges, but has been granted political asylum in the United Kingdom, where he has been living since 2000.
In early September, a number of Kyrgyz parliament deputies said a private plane from London, which may have been carrying Berezovsky, had arrived at Manas airport in Kyrgyzstan's capital on July 29. The deputies said the oligarch may have met with President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's son Maxim.
However, the General Prosecutor's Office said the reports that Berezovsky had visited Kyrgyzstan did not "correspond to reality." President Bakiyev flatly denied the reports, saying neither he nor his son had met with Berezovsky.
Berezovsky has also denied the alleged visit, saying he had last visited the ex-Soviet country in the 1990s.
Russian prosecutors opened a new criminal case against Berezovsky after he told a radio station that he was planning to overthrow the administration of President Vladimir Putin at the beginning of the year.
In an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio station on January 24, Berezovsky, who was a prominent player in the Kremlin in the 1990s and helped bring Putin to power before falling out of favor, said the president had violated the constitution and any violent action on the opposition's part was justified. "That includes taking power by force, which is exactly what I am working on," he said.
Russia's hopes for securing Berezovsky's extradition from the U.K. increased following the incident, and prosecutors filed another extradition request after British authorities condemned his statements. Jack Straw, then Britain's foreign secretary, criticized Berezovsky's comments in a statement February 23.
"I am aware of the comments made by Mr. Boris Berezovsky in an interview on January 24," Straw said. "Advocating the violent overthrow of a sovereign state is unacceptable, and I condemn these comments unreservedly." Straw also warned Berezovsky that the U.K. government could review his political refugee status.
Russian prosecutors had previously demanded Berezovsky's extradition in 2002, when a warrant for his arrest was issued on charges of fraud regarding carmaker AvtoVAZ. The prosecution also declared Berezovsky the main suspect in the embezzlement of large sums from Aeroflot, Russia's national air carrier, in which he owned a significant stake. However, the British authorities turned down Russia's extradition request and Berezovsky dismissed the charges as politically motivated.
The exiled tycoon made his fortune in the turbulent 1990s in dubious privatization deals following the collapse of the Soviet Union. His financial assets helped him rise to power and become a Kremlin insider under ex-President Boris Yeltsin.
