Tbilisi-based Rustavi 2 TV has alleged that business tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili and his former business partner, Boris Berezovsky, were involved in “a number of notorious murder cases”, mainly in Russia.

In a ten-minute story aired on a primetime news program on October 11, Rustavi 2 TV said that Patarkatsishvili’s “name is linked to notorious murders, including the assassination of Vlad Listyev,” a journalist and chief of ORT TV in Russia, who was shot dead in 1995.

“The names of Patarkatsishvili and Berezovsky are also linked to some other similar crimes. Patarkatsishvili also attempted in the past to totally control the Georgian media market. Patarkatsishvili was also allegedly linked to an incident involving the security service’s raid on the Rustavi 2 TV office [in 2001], as Patarkatsishvili was apparently behind the then interior minister, Kakha Targamadze,” the anchor announced.

On October 12 Rustavi 2 TV alleged that Patarkatsishvili was behind the failed attempt on the life of businessman Joni Gigani and the actual assassination of Kakhi Asatiani, the head of the main Georgian airline, Georgian Airways (formerly Airzena) in 2002. The television station showed archive footage in which members of the Asatiani family point the finger at a competing group with links to ex-President Shevardnadze’s family and Patarkatsishvili, who had shown an interest in acquiring Georgian Airways.