Was Portland-based lawyer murdered by Russians?

8:55am Tuesday 21st July 2009

By Diarmuid MacDonagh

A NEW book claims that Portland-based lawyer Stephen Curtis may have been murdered.

Mr Curtis, who had extensive business dealings with Russian oligarchs, died when the Augusta 109 helicopter he was travelling in crashed and exploded in a fireball in a field on approach to Bournemouth International Airport on March 3, 2004.

Mr Curtis, who owned Pennsylvania Castle on Portland, made a name for himself running his own law firm in London, specialising in commercial and property transactions.

But it was his introduction to the Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky which catapulted him into the world of billionaire businessmen, private jets, super-yachts and the inevitable intrigue that accompanied the lifestyle and dealings of the super-rich.

It also, allegedly, put him on a collision course with the Kremlin and would eventually cost him his life.

Curtis’s connections with the often-murky world of Russian business dealings deepened when he was introduced to another oligarch, Boris Berezovsky.

Berezovsky fell out spectacularly with the Russian authorities and became exiled in Britain.

Berezovsky was closely associated with Alexander Litvinenko who was poisoned by radioactive material in London.

Khodorkovsky, who was among a handful of so-called oligarchs who made billions through the privatisation of state-controlled utilities, owned the Russian oil company Yukos.

He hired Curtis to manage the massive flow of money being generated by Yukos through Bank Menatap which had been set up by Khodorkovsky. It is alleged that the lawyer set up a complex financial network that stretched across the world and that Yukos money was channelled through offshore accounts in Gibraltar, the Cayman Islands and the Isle of Man.

As chief executive of Menatap, Curtis was at the centre of a power struggle between the then Russian president Vladimir Putin and Khodorkovsky.

Mr Curtis took the reins of the company when Mr Khodorkovsky was jailed for tax fraud, a charge his supporters believe was trumped up by the Russian authorities for political reasons.

Following Khodorkovsky’s arrest at gunpoint in Siberia the lawyer allegedly told colleagues: “I cannot go back to Russia now. I will be arrested immediately.”

Shortly afterwards Menatap’s chairman Platon Lebedev was arrested on suspicion of fraud.

The Russian authorities were turning the screw on Yukos and many believed Putin had staked his reputation on bringing down some of the oligarchs who dared to question his authority.

It was later claimed that Mr Curtis was at the heart of a smear campaign against top Russian targets including President Putin and Chelsea supremo Roman Abramovich.

Mr Curtis was the chairman of the security firm ISC Global (UK) which worked for a group of Russian tycoons plotting against Putin.

ISC is alleged to have launched a campaign to discredit Mr Putin and 11 senior Russians, including Chelsea Football Club owner Mr Abramovich.

It is around this time, friends and colleagues claim, that Stephen Curtis began to fear for his life, according to the new book Londongrad: From Russia With Cash.

The authors, Mark Hollingworth and Stewart Lansley, also claim that he was under constant surveillance in the weeks leading up to his death by private investigators acting for disgruntled shareholders in Yukos and by Russian state investigators. He reportedly moved his desk away from the window of his London office amid fears he could be targeted by a gunman.

In early 2004 security guards found a small magnet of the type used to secure listening devices at Pennsylvania Castle. According to Curtis’s uncle, Eric Jenkins, his nephew received threatening phone calls and was forced to hire a bodyguard.

The book claims that he was tipped over the edge when one call made a reference to his wife Sarah and his 13-year-old daughter.

In February 2004 he contacted the Foreign Office and National Crime Intelligence Service (NCIS) and offered full co-operation. He was regarded as a prize asset because of his vast knowledge of Russian business dealings in London.

Curtis asked for another controller but before one was assigned he lay dead in a Dorset field.

A week before the crash Curtis told a friend: “If anything happens to me in the next few weeks, it will not be an accident.”

He played his friends a message left on his mobile phone: “Curtis, where are you?” asked a voice with a Russian accent. “We are here. We are behind you. We follow you.”

One former employee of Curtis’s law firm is adamant that his former boss was murdered.

“Definitely,” he said. “It was done by remote control. They knew about the flight plans in advance because they were tapping his phones.”

Nigel Brown, head of ISC Global, which also provided security for Berezovsky and Khodorkovsky, has also raised suspicions about the death of Curtis and Max Radford and questioned why a more thorough investigation had not taken place.

He said: “The timing of his death was very suspicious and there were people out there who had a motive to kill him. He just knew too much.

“What I cannot understand is why there has never been a proper investigation. Usually, the police would interview the last person to speak to him and I was that person. We may not know for sure what happened to Stephen, but I think there should have been a more thorough inquiry.”

Stephen Curtis’s widow Sarah, who still lives at Pennsylvania Castle, said: “I have read the reports but I have absolutely no comment to make.”