REUTERS/Olivia Harris
From the police:
"Thames Valley Police has launched an investigation into the death of a 67-year-old man at a property in Ascot, Berkshire.
His death is currently being treated as unexplained and a full inquiry is under way.
The area around the property has been cordoned off to allow the investigation to take place."
Chemical, biological and nuclear experts sent to UK home of dead Russian tycoon Boris #Berezovsky, police say
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) March 24, 2013
[UPDATE 17:00 EST] Police say there's no evidence so far that a "third party" was involved in the death of Berezovsky, BBC reports.
Berezovsky was a fierce critic of the Kremlin and a close friend of Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian dissident who was fatally poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in London in 2006. (The former KGB agent wanted by the U.K. in relation to Litvinenko's death was poisoned by the same substance.)
Ahkmed Zakayev, a Chechen opposition leader and another member of the "London Circle" of exiled Russians, was the target of a mysterious Russian hitman in Britain.
BBC News notes that Berezovsky "survived numerous assassination attempts, including a bomb that decapitated his chauffeur."
The former Soviet mathematician amassed a fortune selling imported Mercedes and Russian-made cars during
Berezovsky was No.701 on Forbes' 2009 billionaires list. However, the BBC reports, costly court cases had recently left him struggling to pay debts.
The oligarch recently lost a $6.5 billion legal battle to former apprentice and business partner Roman Abramovich. It was the biggest personal court case in British history.
Berzovsky sued Abramovich, saying that the Chelsea Football Club boss intimidated him into selling shares in their jointly-owned oil company, Sibneft, at a "fraction of their true worth."
Alexander Dobrovinksy, a prominent lawyer at Moscow-based Alexander Dobrovinsky & Partners, says Berezovsky committed suicide.
From RT:
“Just got a call from London. Boris Berezovsky committed suicide. He was a difficult man. A move of disparity? Impossible to live poor? A strike of blows? I am afraid no one will get to know now,” the lawyer said on his social network page.
RT notes that Berzovsky's son-in-law said Berzovsky was recently depressed, failing to keep in touch with friends and acquaintances while staying home a lot.
"He was a very close friend and a very nice man, very kind to me and to the people around him," Lord Bell, a close friend who had been informed today by Berezovsky's private lawyer, told The Telegraph.
Here's The Telegraph's story on his life and here's one published by Agency France-Presse.