Exiled Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky won 150,000 pounds libel damages at London's High Court on Wednesday after claims on a Russian TV channel that he was connected with the radiation poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.

Berezovsky, 63, who was granted political asylum in Britain in 2003, sued over allegations broadcast on the state owned television channel RTR Planeta in April 2007, available to British satellite viewers.
 

Mr Justice Eady heard that RTR, which has never suggested that what it broadcast was true, had declined to take part in the proceedings.
 

It left journalist Vladimir Terluk, who Berezovsky said was a silhouetted figure called Pyotr featured in the programme, "to face the music on his own", the Press Association said.
 

The judge, who tried the case without a jury, said: "I can say unequivocally that there is no evidence before me that Mr Berezovsky had any part in the murder of Mr Litvinenko. Nor, for that matter, do I see any basis for reasonable grounds to suspect him of it."
 

The businessman said he felt the programme was deliberate propaganda to threaten his reputation, asylum status and security.
 

Berezovsky later said outside court: "I tried to protect my reputation and the judgment is clear on my side."
 

Litvinenko, a Kremlin critic and former KGB agent, was given a deadly dose of polonium-210, a rare radioactive isotope, in London in 2006.
 

Berezovsky, who is wanted in Moscow on criminal charges but whom Britain has refused to extradite, told the court that Litvinenko had twice saved his life and their shared history as exiles and opponents of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the FSB security service had cemented their friendship.
 

Litvinenko's death led to one of the worst rows between Britain and Russia since the end of the Cold War.
 

Britain has called on Moscow to extradite former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoy to stand trial for the murder. Lugovoy, who was later elected to the Russian parliament, giving him immunity from prosecution, denies any link to the death.
 

Berezovsky added in a statement issued through his lawyers: "I have no doubt that, in making this programme, the purpose of RTR and the Russian authorities was to undermine my asylum status in the UK and to put the investigation of Sasha Litvinenko's murder on the wrong track."

Although RTR was responsible for the content of the programme as a whole, the judge found that Terluk was not personally responsible for any allegation that Berezovsky was implicated in Litvinenko's murder.
 

Both RTR and Terluk, who denied in court that he was Pyotr and pleaded justification, are jointly liable for the award of damages.
 

Source: Reuters