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One of Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics fears an attempt on his life after the Kremlin chief’s henchmen used former British spooks to track him.

Financier and anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder became a major thorn in the Russian president’s side by launching the Magnitsky Act.

The sanction law – so far adopted by nine nations, including the US and UK – is used to freeze the assets of Russian human rights abusers.

Mr Browder said former spies were hired at a British firm to keep tabs on him, and paid six-figure sums.

In evidence next month, he will tell a Parliamentary committee they were actually working for the Russian leader.

The 54-year-old has had death threats by text and is one of the few people Putin has openly named as an enemy.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

Russia’s prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika, even warned he would not be allowed “to sleep soundly”. And in the wake of the Novichok horrors, he fears Putin may now send his assassins.

Mr Browder said: “Putin is ready to kill for money. We know how important it is to him. He values it over human life. To take away his money and the money of those around him is the most devastating thing.

“My strategy is offence rather than defence, so if anything happens to me, everybody is going to know who did it.

“They are pursuing every way of getting to me. The most extreme way would be Novichok on my door handle. Or one that would cause the least consequences is to find a friendly country to extradite me to Russia, where they would torture me, have a show trial and then murder me, telling everyone I died of natural causes.”

US-born Mr Browder, who is a British citizen, spoke to us from a secret address. We chose not to name the British firm involved in the spying, which refused to comment when approached.

It is thought the firm compiled legally gathered intelligence dossiers on him and tried to track him down.

Mr Browder said: “They were employed to produce intelligence on my whereabouts, my activities, my background. What you have is British ­operatives working with the Russian government indirectly to cause me harm.

“It was hundreds of thousands paid, and professionals tracking me. I don’t think former British intelligence officers should work for foreign adversaries chasing down citizens.

(Image: REX/Shutterstock)

“I will testify in front of the Security and Intelligence Committee and this is one of the key issues I will share. They are preparing a report on illegal Russian activities in the UK and this is one I think they are not aware of.”

Documents show the firm received at least £50,000 before taking the work – with the cash coming from a name on the Magnitsky list of human rights abusers that was subject to EU sanctions. While the link between the firm and Moscow may be a legal business one, experts say the company may have “crossed the line ethically”.

A former intelligence officer said: “The security and business intelligence world is competitive and there are grey areas and lines being crossed.

“While working for a Russian oligarch may be legitimate at first, what happens when he asks you to investigate someone on British soil?” The Magnitsky Act is named after Mr Browder’s Russian accountant Sergei Magnitsky – who was beaten to death in Moscow’s Butyrka prison.

He was arrested while working for his company Hermitage, which exposed corruption in Russian firms.

Mr Browder made himself a target by promoting the act in his memory.

He said: “Now I have to be careful.”

(Image: PA)

Mr Browder was tried last year in his absence in Russia on a trumped-up tax evasion charge and got nine years. The US Department of Justice recently warned him Moscow was trying to rendition him.

Interpol has rejected arrest warrants after ruling his extradition political, not criminal.

But in May, he was held in Spain in a move prompted by Russia.

Fortunately local police realised the warrant was out of date and freed him.

The father-of-two, who has a Russian wife, Elena, was singled out in the spy swap offer to President Trump at the recent Helsinki summit.

Putin said the US may quiz Russian hacking suspects if he could grill people accused of crimes in Russia – naming Mr Browder. The US refused.

Mr Browder feels the UK has not been tough enough on Putin and failed in its duty to protect Novichok victims Sergei and Yulia Skripal, and Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess.

(Image: Getty)

He added: “The Magnitsky Act exists in Britain but has not been used. What would be most useful is if the Government robustly sanctioned Russia and oligarchs connected to the Putin regime.

“My main move now is to get Magnitsky Acts passed all over the world and surround Putin with a world of hurt by getting all his assets frozen. I feel like I am on a mission to get justice for Magnitsky.”

Justice for lawyer pal

The Magnitsky Act is named after lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, killed after probing a fraud on Bill Browder’s firm Hermitage Capital Management in Moscow.

Mr Browder spent years investing in Russian firms, then exposing their corruption – angering Putin, who is alleged to have dirty money in them.

He was expelled in 2005 and his Moscow office was raided in 2007 amid claims of tax fraud.

Mr Magnitksy learned police gave seized papers to criminals, who used them to fraudulently reclaim £180million in tax already paid by Hermitage.

He was arrested and jailed, then died in a violent assault.

Mr Browder’s Magnitsky Act aims to tackle human rights abusers by targeting assets.

Living in fear

Putin is feared to have a “hit list” of hundreds and is thought to have ordered many deaths worldwide.

Former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with Polonium-210 in London in 2006.

(Image: Reuters)

Oil tycoon Yuri Golubev, a friend of dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, also died in the capital in 2007. An obituary said he “felt unwell” but US intelligence suspected foul play.

Alexander Perepilichnyy, who exposed fraud by Russian officials, died in Surrey in 2012 after a trip to Paris. He had “signs of fatal plant poison” in his stomach.

Oligarch and Putin critic Boris Berezovsky was found dead at his Berkshire home in 2013 in an apparent suicide by hanging.

And Scot Young, who often fronted deals for Berezovsky, was found impaled on railings beneath a London flat in 2014.