Russian tycoon was ‘broken, suicidal’ before his death, London inquest hears

Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky was a "broken man" after losing a multibillion-dollar court case to fellow Russian Roman Abramovich and regularly spoke of killing himself before his death, a British inquest heard.

Berezovsky's bodyguard Avi Navama said on Wednesday that his boss had asked him about the best ways to commit suicide and told him he was "the poorest man in the world" after losing a US$6 billion damages claim to his former partner in 2012.

Berezovsky (pictured), who became a Moscow powerbroker under the late President Boris Yeltsin only to fall foul of Vladimir Putin, was found dead a year ago in the bathroom of his former wife's home near Windsor, west of London, with a scarf around his neck.

Navama said the case against Abramovich triggered a change in Berezovsky's personality. He suffered from depression before his death at the age of 67.

"He told me he's not a billionaire, he's the poorest man in the world," Navama told the inquest at Windsor Guildhall.

A fast-talking former mathematician, Berezovsky scaled the heights of a ruthless post-Soviet business and political world, surviving years of power struggles and assassination attempts before fleeing to London in 2000 after a row with Putin.