6 Nov 2010

Alexander Lebedev's empire suffers another blow with hotel raid in Ukraine

Alexander Lebedev, the Russian owner of Britain's Independent and London Evening Standard newspapers, suffered another bruising blow to his business empire today after police carried out a raid on his luxury hotel in Ukraine.

Dozens of tax officers burst into the More resort in Alushta, on Crimea's south-eastern coast, early yesterday. They seized documents and computers. Officials from Ukraine's SBU security service swarmed over the hotel today.

lebedev

The raid came 48 hours after masked, gun-toting special forces stormed Lebedev's National Reserve Bank in Moscow.

Russian police said the search on Tuesday was connected to a criminal investigation into employees from another bank.

Lebedev today told the Guardian it had been a bad week. But he said he would not bow to forces within Russia's murky power structure who were apparently hellbent on making him flee.

Full story at The Guardian