RUSSIAN oligarch Boris Berezovsky was a "broken man" after losing a multi-billion pound court case to fellow Russian Roman Abramovich and regularly talked about killing himself in the months before his death, an inquest has heard.

Mr Berezovsky's bodyguard Avi Navama said his employer asked him about the best ways to take his own life and told him he was "the poorest man in the world" after losing the damages claim to the Chelsea football club owner in 2012.

Mr Berezovsky, who was a Moscow powerbroker under the late President Boris Yeltsin only to fall foul of Vladimir Putin, was found dead a year ago in his former wife's home near Windsor, west of London, with a scarf around his neck.

Mr Navama said the court case against Mr Abramovich triggered a change in the personality of the 67-year-old, who suffered from depression for six months before his death.

"He told me he's not a billionaire, he's the poorest man in the world," Mr Navama told the inquest at Windsor Guildhall.

Mr Navama said he phoned an ambulance at around 3pm on March 23 after getting no response from his employer all day. The bodyguard said he had concerns Mr Berezovsky might have harmed himself based on previous talk of suicide, and said he wanted a member of the emergency services with him if he was to make the grim discovery.

Mr Navama said there were "30 activities" on Mr Berezovsky's phone when he went to his room, and assumed he was locked in the bathroom. After deciding to break down the door, the bodyguard said he found his boss "lying on his back".

He told the hearing: "I couldn't find a pulse."

Asked by Berkshire Coroner Peter Bedford if there was any question the body was Mr Berezovsky's, Mr Navama said: "No doubt."

The inquest continues.