PRAGUE, Jan 15 (CTK) — Most British firms cited in an arti­cle by Russ­ian jour­nal­ist Oleg Lurye in the Moscow weekly Novaya Gazeta in con­nec­tion with the Russ­ian debt and Osama bin Laden are really reg­is­tered in Britain, but their phone num­ber is not avail­able to the pub­lic and they can­not be con­tacted, CTK found today.

None of them is on the British lists of organ­i­sa­tions con­nected with al-Qaeda. The Home Office told CTK that the arti­cle related to the infor­ma­tion which were of intel­li­gence char­ac­ter and it would not com­ment on it.

The firms cited by Novaya Gazeta and also included in the British Com­pa­nies’ House are Fal­con Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment Lim­ited, Fal­con Cap­i­tal Nom­i­nees Lim­ited, Fal­con Prop­er­ties Ltd., Safron Advi­sors, Attock Oil Com­pany Ltd., Globe Admin­is­tra­tion Ltd.

All of them have Lon­don addresses of their head­quar­ters but none of them is in the Lon­don tele­phone direc­tory. Some of them have iden­ti­cal addresses.

The firm Turkey Fock UK is not reg­is­tered in Britain. The same goes for Falkon Ltd. and Islay Hold­ing. Rus­sell Wood (Hold­ings) Ltd. and Rus­sell Wood Ltd. are the only ones from the Russ­ian list which exist and also have a phone num­ber, but have refused to answer ques­tions from jour­nal­ists and demand writ­ten contact.

The British Com­pa­nies’ House con­tains over 100 firms with the name Fal­con, which is a favourite part of the name. The com­pany reg­is­ter has a sin­gle firm with Falkon writ­ten with a K in the name.

The Czech firm Falkon Cap­i­tal, to which the Czech gov­ern­ment has sold the Russ­ian debt for $ 580 mil­lion, is directly con­nected with ter­ror­ist Osama bin Laden, Russ­ian jour­nal­ist Oleg Lurye wrote on Monday.

Dubi­ous manoeu­vres about the Russ­ian debt to the Czech Repub­lic have brought profit to one of the com­pa­nies owned by the fam­ily of bin Laden, the world’s most wanted ter­ror­ist, Lurye wrote in an arti­cle head­lined Rus­sia Owes Money to Bin Laden.

On the basis of infor­ma­tion which is report­edly part of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments which the U.S. secret ser­vices gath­ered for sev­eral years, Lurye came to the con­clu­sion that bin Laden’s fam­ily owns the firm Saudi Bin­laden Group, which is the main source of the terrorist’s for­tune. The group’s sub­sidiaries allegedly include Falkon Cap­i­tal, a com­pany which the Czech cab­i­net recently entrusted with medi­at­ing the repay­ment of the Russ­ian debt to the Czech Repub­lic. Falkon Cap­i­tal is to be paid a large part of the debt — $ 770 mil­lion, Lurye wrote.

He recalled Russ­ian Pre­mier Mikhail Kasyanov’s agree­ment last autumn with Rus­sia pay­ing a total of $ 1.35 bil­lion to Falkon, of which 580 mil­lion would go to the Czech Repub­lic and the remain­ing $ 770 mil­lion to Falkon Capital.

The debt arose under the com­mu­nist era. It was owed by the for­mer Soviet Union to the for­mer Czecho­slo­va­kia. After the demise of the two coun­tries it was inher­ited by Rus­sia, which owes it to the Czech Repub­lic now.