Alexander Lebedev bank searched by security service agents

RUSSIAN security service agents have searched a Moscow bank controlled by billionaire tycoon Alexander Lebedev, owner of Britain’s Independent and Evening Standard newspapers.

Mr Lebedev – a former KGB spy – was not at the National Reserve Bank when agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service, the main successor to the KGB secret police, arrived for the search yesterday, his aide Artyom Artyomov said.

Mr Artyomov added that Mr Lebedev was also concerned by checks by about 130 officials from the central bank which has been going on for a week.

“We do not know what the FSB search it is about,” Mr Artyomov said. “The officials from the central bank are interested in the personal accounts of Alexander Lebedev, including the accounts he uses to finance his newspapers.”

Mr Lebedev has ruffled feathers in the Kremlin in recent years by funding an opposition newspaper and poking fun at prime minister Vladimir Putin, whom he says must open up the political system or face turmoil in coming years.