Mikhail Gutseriyev - a Death in the family, international arrest warrant, UK visa and a bolt hole in London

AFP are reporting that on Tuesday the Russian authorities through the Moscow Tverskoi District Court, issued an international arrest warrant / order for the arrest of slim, cheery oil billionaire Mikhail Gutseriyev, ex-CEO of oil major Russneft. Interpol have been alerted although this was not confirmed by Interpol HQ in Lyons, France.Lawyers for Gutseriyev have appealed the warrant and a hearing is scheduled for September 5th.

Russian newspapers report that he had fled to Britain via Azerbaijan, where he can claim President Ilham Aliyev as a personal friend - The 3 Gutseriyev brothers represent one of the most powerful clans in the country. Azerbaijan maintains an extradition treaty with Russia.

A spokesman for the British Embassy in Moscow said British authorities could not comment on any visa applications."We don't give details on individual visa applications," said James Barbour, spokesman for the British Embassy in Moscow.Ho.Ho.Ho. Azerbaijani officials this week denied Gutseriyev was in the country.

Last week, Gutseriyev's son Chingiskhan, 22, himself a senior executive in one of his father's businesses, was reported dead in what the Kommersant daily described as mysterious circumstances. Moscow times report the accident and that Chingiskahn was buried in the family's home of village of Chermen, Prigorodny District, North Ossetia. A ceremony was also held in the Blue Mosque in Baku on Thursday in a Muslim ceremony attended by the president of neighboring Ingushetia Murat Zyazikov who was reported saying that Chingiskahn's father was not present. He did say that his two uncles, brothers of Mikhail, -- Khamzat, who ran for president of the Republic in 2002 (Khamzat Gutseriyev, was removed from the candidate list just 1 day before the election . He was charged by the Supreme Council of “running his campaign from his minister's chair instead of taking a vacation.” - this was actually the result of interference of Viktor Kazantsev, Vladimir Putin's plenipotentiary representative in the Southern Federal District) and had been republican Interior Ministry under President Ruslan Aushev, and Said-Salam, who is a Duma deputy.

Chingiskhan, who attended Harrow School (fees £36,000 per annum) and was a graduate of Warwick University both in the Uk , was said in several news reports to have died of a brain haemorrhage following an accident in his Ferrari in Moscow.

But Kommersant said Moscow police had no record of a car accident involving Chingiskhan and that there was no sign of him being treated in any Moscow hospital. Russneft officials said the death was a tragic accident.Chingiskahn was not a director of Russneft but worked at Binbank, also owned by his father. Se also Radio Free Europe

For details of the way Guts had Russneft snatched off him see previous post. Also a good time to read the Guradian obituary by Felix Corley of campaigning journalist Yuri Shchekochikhin of Novaya Gazeta who died of unnatural causes just over 4 years ago....

"he had been withering in his criticism of President Putin's leadership, and what he regarded as the resurrection of Soviet methods. "We are returning to where we have escaped from," he complained. "We are being driven ever more insistently back to the radiant past."

Now the question is .... how long will it take Mikhail to obtain UK Citizenship ? - longer than Alisher Usmanov (No 278 in Forbes' World's Richest - and top friend of Missile Man Putin - see pic ) to take over Arsenal FC ?