"I’ve lost the point… there is no point in my life."- Berezovsky's last interview before death

Boris Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch, said less than 48 hours before he was found dead at his home in Berkshire that he no longer saw the point in life. lya Zhegulev, a commentator with the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, met the 67-year-old oligarch in the restaurant of the Four Seasons hotel on Park Lane on Friday evening.

Mr Berezovsky said had had lived through "many disappointments" in London. He said: “I’ve lost the point… there is no point [or meaning] in my life. I don’t want to be involved in politics. I don’t know what to do. I’m 67 years old. And I don’t know what I should do from now on.”

He said he wanted to return to Moscow: “I want nothing more than to return to Russia. Even when they opened a criminal case against me, I wanted to return to Russia… that was my main miscalculation: that Russia is so dear to me that I cannot be an émigré.”

Friends of Mr Berezovsky raised the possibility of suicide and said he had been “destroyed” by losing a £3billion legal action with his former business partner, Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea football club. Berezovsky had been living in exile in Britain since 2000.

He was given asylum in 2003, which created tensions between London and Moscow.

Once worth as much as £3billion, he had suffered financial and personal problems, his friends said.