Fugitive tycoon says he's returning to UK

LONDON — A tycoon who fled Britain almost two decades ago following the spectacular collapse of his business empire is returning to London to face charges of fraud, officials said Thursday.

Asil Nadir told British media he was returning to write the final chapter of a boom-and-bust story that tarnished the reputation of the Conservative Party — to which he was a major donor — and made him a fugitive from British justice for 17 years.

Speaking from a nearly empty passenger jet in Turkey, where was stopping on his way back to London, Nadir told Sky News television that he wanted to "go back and hopefully get a closure to this sad affair."

Nadir, 69, never faced the prospect of being taken back to Britain by force: The self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus isn't recognized by Britain and has no extradition treaty with the U.K.

Britain's Serious Fraud Office said it had worked out bail conditions with Nadir's lawyers — including a 250,000 pound (approximately $390,000) surety, a ban on travel and the requirement that he hand over his passport and other travel documents.

The office said that Nadir would also be fitted with an electronic monitoring device and barred from coming within the vicinity of an airport, seaport, or London's St. Pancras station, the terminus of Eurostar trains from Paris.

Asked why he was giving up a comfortable life in northern Cyprus with his 26-year-old wife to face trial, Nadir told Sky that he was eager to see justice done.

"My innocence is sufficient security for me," he said.

Nadir, the son of a wealthy Cypriot, came to England in the 1960s and set up a east London clothing company which grew into an international conglomerate.

In 1980, he took control of the ailing British textile company Polly Peck and used the firm as his stock market vehicle for expansion. The company's stock price multiplied as Nadir went on an acquisitions binge, snapping up Del Monte's fresh fruit operations and Japan's Sansui Electric Co.

Nadir became one of Britain's richest people in the process, although his fortune crumpled when his company's stock collapsed after investigators began probing irregularities in Nadir family trusts.

Nadir denied charges he had stolen from his company to line his pockets, insisting he was the victim of a Greek-inspired political conspiracy. His company still filed for bankruptcy protection in late 1990, hundreds of millions of pounds (dollars) in debt.