One of Britain's most notorious fugitives arrived in the UK today in an attempt to clear his name, 17 years after fleeing the country in a private jet.

Asil Nadir landed in the cargo area at Luton airport just before 1.30pm, returning to face the multimillion-pound fraud charges that followed the spectacular collapse of his Polly Peck food and electronics empire in 1993.

As journalists waited for Nadir to step back on to British soil, immigration officials processed his papers on the privately chartered Airbus A320.

He then left the plane, climbed into a waiting Jaguar with blacked-out windows, and was taken with his wife, Nur, to a Mayfair flat.

Nadir is due to appear at the Old Bailey next Thursday. Representatives of Bark & Co, his London lawyers, members of his personal staff and journalists from the Times and Sky News, including presenter Kay Burley, were part of Nadir's entourage on the jet.

Special arrangements were put in place for Nadir's arrival at Luton: as well as having his documentation checked on the plane, he was allowed to leave for central London via a gate normally reserved for the transfer of cargo to and from planes.

Ensconsed in Mayfair, Nadir emerged from his apartment building to address reporters on the doorstep, where he claimed he had done nothing wrong. "Everybody should be deemed innocent before they are proven guilty. Why do you think I'm here voluntarily?"

Speaking to Sky News on the plane earlier, he expanded on his protestations of innocence. "Motive is very important in wrongdoing. I had no motive. There was no need for me, a man that spends many millions of pounds in charity work – children, elderly the arts – to steal. With that sort of wealth, why should one steal?"

Burley then asked him: "If you didn't steal, where is the money?"

Nadir laughed, paused, and replied: "You have to ask the administrators. My conscience is clear, I am innocent."

The fugitive tycoon and former Conservative party donor will resume a court battle that came to a dramatic end when he fled Britain in 1993. He had been due to answer 66 charges of theft and false accounting in a £34m fraud trial, but fled to France and then northern Cyprus in a private jet in the middle of the night.

Nadir, who now runs a media firm in the Turkish-controlled territory, will argue that there was a grave abuse of process in the case brought against him by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). For years he has alleged that the police and the SFO placed the judge in his case under improper pressure, made false allegations of corruption against him and his advisers and seized documents necessary for his defence.

Speaking from Turkey today, the 69-year-old said he believed the legal "environment" was right for him to return. Nadir told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I'm hoping to get a fair trial, if this matter goes to trial, obviously. But that was not the case in the past."

Nadir denied having made a deal over his treatment when he returns.

"I have not done a deal. My lawyers have asked for me to be granted bail before I came to England and that was decided," he said. "There is no deal. There is only one deal and that is, I am hoping I will see for the first time some justice."

Nadir will have to wear an electronic tag until the end of his trial and pay a bail surety of £250,000.

Polly Peck, the company that Nadir built up from scratch, dealt in everything from fruit to fashion and was one of the biggest City success stories of the 1980s, delivering returns to shareholders of up to 1,000 times their original investment.

The former rag salesman was 39th on the Sunday Times Rich List, owned a string of luxury properties in Britain, an island in the Aegean and a dozen racehorses. He was also a major Tory party donor, a frequent guest at Downing Street, and was friends with the royal family.

His empire collapsed in 1990 when he was arrested on theft and false accounting charges.

Last month he was granted bail by an Old Bailey judge, who said he hoped his ruling would end the "legal limbo" which had existed since Nadir fled. The judge also quashed an arrest warrant for Nadir and imposed 10 conditions on bail, one of which is to appear at the Old Bailey on 3 September.

Nadir's newly issued British passport will be surrendered to the SFO, but it is expected that the electronic tag he will have to wear as part of the bail agreement will not be fitted until after his court appearance.

Nadir's return to Britain is a major event in northern Cyprus, where he has extensive business interests and controls the Kibris media group.

In a related case in 1997, the court of appeal said Polly Peck's finances involved "a complex web of companies and organisations incorporated 'offshore' in Jersey and on the continent". In 2002, the Accountants Joint Disciplinary Board said that "because of an almost total lack of controls within Polly Peck's head office, Mr Nadir was able to transfer funds out of the parent company's London bank accounts without question or challenge".

Nadir's spectacular fall embarrassed John Major's government after it emerged that a Conservative minister, Michael Mates, had given Nadir a watch engraved: "Don't let the buggers get you down." Mates, the minister of state for Northern Ireland, resigned over his links to the businessman.

In interviews today, Nadir did not rule out supporting the Conservatives financially again, arguing that there was nothing wrong with donating to a political party. He said: "It's only fair if you approve of the policies of a government, if you want to extend their power, why not do it? It's not criminal, it's allowed."