Exiled Russian banker left in coma by submachine gun 'assassination bid' put under armed guard in hospital over fears of further attempts on his life



German Gorbuntsov was 'blasted with a submachine gun' as he entered a block of flats near Canary Wharf



Friends fear he was victim of mafia contract after he was a witness in the case of an attempted murder of another banker in 2009

Forty-five-year-old exile is in a medically-induced coma in hospital

Gorbuntsov is also on Moldova's wanted list over allegations of an illegal bank takeover and embezzlement

He has previously said: 'If I go back to Russia, they will kill me'



Russia's gangster violence exploded on to the streets of London when a banker was gunned down entering his luxury Docklands home.



German Gorbuntsov was in the foyer of his apartment block near Canary Wharf when a would-be assassin sprayed shots at him with a submachine gun.



The 45-year-old collapsed at the scene. Today he was said to be in a 'critical but stable condition' under armed guard at a hospital where he remains in a coma.

Coma: German Gorbuntsov was repeatedly shot outside a block of flats near Canary Wharf in an attempted assassination attempt

Gun blast: German Gorbuntsov is pictured here being carried into ambulance after being shot in Canary Wharf

Friends of Mr Gorbuntsov fear that a mafia contract has been taken out on his life because he was a witness in the case of an attempted murder of another banker in 2009.

It is feared there could now be further attempts on his life .

His neighbours in Byng Street on the Isle of Dogs, where serviced apartments cost up to £200 a day, said a tearful blonde tried to reach the banker’s prone body.

Emma Key, 30, said the woman – in her 20s and thought to be his wife – was being held back by police officers.



‘She was obviously upset, she was crying. She was trying to get into the ambulance. A policeman was trying to hold her back.



‘The concierge told us he had been shot three times and that that was his wife.’

Tony Smith, a 26-year-old estate agent, drove down Byng Street only moments after the murder attempt.

He said: ‘I pulled my car up and looked down and saw his body, saw him.



‘Police were surrounding him but there were only two police cars, and the rest came later.



‘The window was shot out on the door. I thought he had been stabbed at first. I didn’t expect this to happen in this block.’



Bart Fogler, 27, a worker on the front desk of a nearby block also saw the aftermath of the shooting.



He told The Sun that he ran to the scene after hearing the shots and saw Mr Gorbuntsov bleeding heavily from his injuries.

Murdered: Alexander Litvinenko, 43, died after being poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in November 2006

'He was trying to stand but he fell to the ground,' Mr Fogler said.

Lynette Johnson, 43, a nearby resident saw the lobby after the shooting.

She told The Sun: 'There was blood everywhere, all over the walls.

'The windows were smashed so he may have been shot through them.'



Mr Gorbuntsov has been linked to an investigation into a gun attack on Alexander Antonov, whose son Vladimir once owned Portsmouth Football Club.



New evidence from Mr Gorbuntsov led to the case being reopened by the judicial authorities in Moscow.



The case had been put on ice because the mastermind behind the attack remained unidentified even after three Chechens had been convicted of trying to kill Mr Antonov.



The same gang was also found guilty of assassinating Ruslan Yamadayev, one of five brothers from a clan that had challenged the power of Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed president, Ramzan Kadyrov.



Vadim Vedenin, Mr Gorbuntsov’s lawyer, told Kommersant newspaper in Moscow that his client’s new testimony in the Antonov case had implicated two of his former business partners.



The Russian banker had himself been suspected of involvement at one point. According to a neighbour, the man who attempted to murder Mr Gorbuntsov 'was known' to his victim.

The 54-year-old management consultant was at home when the shooting took place.



He said: 'I arrived home at 6.30pm and went upstairs, and around 9pm that night the police knocked on the door and mentioned there had been an incident, and that someone was critically injured and taken to hospital.



'They mentioned that the attacker was known to the person who'd been attacked.



'The morning after, I came down to go to work just before 7am and the glass here in the door was all smashed in.



'When the police mentioned the incident they hadn't said it was physically in the foyer,' added the man, who gave his name only as John.

The inquiry into Tuesday evening’s shooting is being led by the Metropolitan Police Trident gang crime command, which is said to be liaising with counter-terrorism officers.



Yesterday a spokesman for Scotland Yard said it was too early to speculate on whether the attack was linked to the Antonov investigation of 2009. He also refused to reveal what weapon was used.



The attempted assassination will prompt comparisons with the murder of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in London in November 2006.



British prosecutors have named his fellow ex-KGB agent Andrei Lugovoy as the main suspect in his poisoning with radioactive polonium-210.



Shooting: German Gorbuntsov, 45, was attacked on the Isle of Dogs close to Canary Wharf

However, the Russian authorities have repeatedly refused to send him to face trial in the UK.

Last night Mr Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, sent her thoughts to Mr Gorbuntsov’s family.



She said: ‘This must obviously be a very difficult time. I don’t think it is very easy to say what has happened at this stage – they will be hoping for some clarity very soon.’



Mr Gorbuntsov, who used to own a number of banks in Russia and Moldova, has been living in exile in Britain.



He is on Moldova’s wanted list over allegations of involvement in an illegal bank takeover and embezzlement. Another of his lawyers, Valery Andronik, told Kommersant that the attack was unlikely to have been planned from within the former Soviet republic.



‘He told me several times, “If I go back to Russia, they will kill me”,’ said Mr Andronik.



It is understood that Mr Gorbuntsov spent time in jail before becoming a businessman in the early 1990s.



He set up nearly 40 companies involved in security, construction, real estate and finance.

Although counter-terror officers are involved, Mr Gorbuntsov’s shooting is being put down to organised crime.



A Scotland Yard spokesman said: ‘A man was shot a number of times as he entered a block of flats by a suspect who is described as white, six feet tall and of slim build.

