Badri Patarkatsishvili

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Badri Patarkatsishvili

Arkadi "Badri" Patarkatsishvili ( Georgian ბადრი პატარკაციშვილი ; born October 31, 1955 in Tbilisi , † February 12, 2008 in Leatherhead , England ) was a Georgian entrepreneur. The former Russian oligarch was active as a philanthropist and was President of the Georgian Olympic Committee and the Georgian Business Association since 2004 .

Life

Russian oligarch

Patarkatsishvili graduated from high school in Tbilisi. He then studied at various universities. From 1988 he lived in Russia and initially worked as a car mechanic in a repair shop. From 1993 he was registered in the Moscow region . In 1994 he became an assistant to the Russian finance mogul Boris Berezovsky . He sat on the board of the trading company LogoWAS and the oil company Sibneft , was chairman of the board of the private television broadcaster TV-6 . In 1998 he became deputy general director of the semi-state television broadcaster ORT . He helped the Russian oligarch Roman Abramowitsch to join the aluminum group RUSAL .

Georgian media entrepreneur

In 2000 Patarkatsishvili moved to Tbilisi. In 2002 he founded the Imedi Media Holding , the owner of the radio station Imedi (dt. Hope ), the private television station Imedi TV , a magazine and a news agency . The station received a cheap frequency and from 2003 reached 90% of Georgian households. It now has the second highest ratings in the country. Between 2003 and 2004 he built a new town, also called Imedi, near the seaside resort of Ureki on the Black Sea coast .

philanthropist

Patarkatsishvili sponsored Georgia's sports, culture and state. He established the Badri Patarkatsishvili Foundation , which finances earthquake victims, the Georgian circus , international cultural festivals, the renovation of church buildings and the publication of scientific works. In 2001 he acquired the football club Dinamo Tbilisi . In 2002, he supported the Tbilisi city administration in paying off debts to Russian energy companies, in 2003 he donated several off-road vehicles to the Georgian Ministry of the Interior and in 2005 he paid for the repair of the Tbilisi funicular to Mtatsminda.

The businessman held various honorary positions. He was a member of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences , which hosts the annual Emmy Award Gala in New York . Since 2001 he has been president of the Dinamo Tbilisi football club and since 2004 president of the Georgian Olympic Committee . In the same year he was elected President of the Georgian Business Association.

Politician

Until 2002, Patarkatsishvili seemed politically connected to Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze , who had repeatedly praised the businessman and his projects in public. In April 2003 Patarkatsishvili expressed his sympathy for the opposition: He supported the goals of the United Democrats Zurab Schwanias and the New Conservative Party Dawit Gamqrelidses . In fact, he is said to have given donations to many political parties to protect his interests.

In the spring of 2003 Badri Patarkatsishvili brokered a meeting between Schwania, who was to lead the rose revolution in Georgia in November 2003 , and his former business partner Boris Berezovsky in London . It was the first in a series in which Schwania successfully raised funds to support political projects in Ukraine and the campaign for Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko . Patarkatsishvili and Berezovsky gave enormous financial support to the Ukrainian Orange Revolution in Kiev, which lasted from November 2004 to January 2005 . Both businessmen poured millions into funding publications, printing presses, IT equipment, and the like. The exact amount invested is not known, but Berezovsky alone is estimated at around 10 million British pounds.

In March 2006, Patarkatsishvili broke with the organizers of the Rose Revolution in Georgia. He accused the Saakashvili government of exerting pressure on the media through the tax authorities. At the same time, he revealed the existence of uncontrolled reptile funds of the Georgian government. Since 2003 business people have been forced to make contributions in the form of money, shares and donations in kind.

During the mass protests in Georgia from November 2 to 7, 2007 , Patarkatsishvili sided with the opposition. On November 2, he spoke to several thousand demonstrators in front of the Georgian parliament building in Tbilisi, calling on the government to hold a dialogue on new elections. On November 7, the Georgian Prosecutor General opened an investigation against him on suspicion of an attempted coup , which ended on December 21. In the 2008 presidential elections in Georgia , Patarkatsishvili ran as a candidate for head of state.

On December 24, 2007, alleged efforts by Patarkatsishvili to overthrow President Saakashvili by means of a coup by special forces from the Interior Ministry became known. Irakli Kodua, a senior official in the Home Office, publicly presented audio recordings of a conversation allegedly the day before at Patarkatsishvili’s country estate in Surrey , UK , where the latter allegedly offered him US $ 100 million to overthrow Saakashvili, who was briefly disempowered by the Interior Minister should begin. The Tbilisi City Court ordered his pre-trial detention on January 15 .

Criminal authority

According to the Swiss Federal Police Office , Patarkatsishvili was a “criminal authority” and is said to have represented a bridge between criminal and legal structures. According to research by the Russian domestic secret service FSB , he had close connections with the leading Georgian-Russian criminal Otar Kwantrishvili . Kvantarishvili helped him gain a foothold in Moscow in 1993. Since 1998 he has maintained close contacts with Andrei Konstantinowitsch Lugowoi , who was then head of security for the private Russian television station ORT.

Since June 2001 he has been wanted by the Russian Attorney General by means of an arrest warrant for allegedly helping a former Aeroflot manager to escape from prison. In 2002, he was charged in Russia for embezzling cars worth 13 million US dollars in 1994 and 1995, together with Berezovsky and the joint company LogoVAZ 2033, which belonged to the automobile company AutoVAZ ( Lada ).

Private

Patarkatsishvili was married to IV Gudavadze. The daughters Liane (* 1980) and Inna (* 1983) came from the marriage. His residence in Tbilisi was the former wedding palace .

death

Patarkatsishvili died of a heart attack on February 12, 2008 at his country home in Leatherhead , Surrey . In December 2007, he had told a British daily newspaper that he was expecting an assassination attempt planned in Georgia and had at times employed up to 120 bodyguards. Georgian opposition politicians therefore initially suspected an assassination attempt, but investigations by British forensic doctors revealed a natural cause.

literature

  • Paul Klebnikow : The Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the power of the oligarchs . Econ, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-430-15475-8
  • Michael Ludwig: The godfather of Tbilisi. The Georgian oligarch Badri Patarkatsishvili makes politics with his wealth. He finances the opposition and now even wants to become president , In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, November 11, 2007, No. 45, p. 12.

Web links

Commons : Badri Patarkatsishvili  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "The dead billionaire and the 'KGB poison killer'" , London Evening Standard , February 14, 2008.
  2. RT News: Report on the death of Patarkatsishvili , February 2008
  3. Tagesschau: Mysterious death of a regime critic (tagesschau.de archive), February 13, 2008
  4. "Patarkatsishvili had, Heart Disease '" , Civil Georgia , 15. February 2008.