Interpol fugitive drags Russian oligarch to London court

London's latest legal battle between oligarchs from the former Soviet Union gets under way on Monday with a $2.5-billion case complete with gun battles and alleged extortion payments at the centre of the fight to gain control the country's nascent aluminium industry in the 1990s.

Oleg Deripaska, the billionaire metals tycoon whose friendships with Lord Mandelson and financier Nat Rothschild had ensured his name was well known in the UK, is facing a law suit filed by Michael Cherney – an Uzbekistan-born Israeli who claims that he is owed 20-per cent of the shares in Rusal, the aluminium giant under Deripaska's control.

While Deripaska admits to having paid Cherney $250 million following a 2001 meeting in London's Lanesborough Hotel, he says the sum formed the final instalment of an extortion – or krysha – payment to organised crime groups represented by Cherney.

According to Deripaska, he began the payments in the mid-1990s following the shooting of his associate, Valery Tokarev, in which he was seriously injured along with a colleague.

Cherney, is an interpol fugitive, wanted for questioning in Spain for his alleged involvement in a money laundering case and lives in exile in Israel. He filed his lawsuit against Deripaska in 2006 in London on the grounds that he could face assassination if he returned to Russia, where he also feared he may have to face trumped up charges, and also not get a fair hearing to a fair hearing.

In a 2008 ruling on over where the case would be heard, justice Christopher Clarke said, "A considerable body of evidence has been put in relating to Cherney's alleged criminality" while indicating, "Mr Deripaska, himself, is the subject of serious allegations … In July 2006 the US authorities revoked Deripaska's visa.