Sunday, March 18, 2018

Russian Exile Nikolai Glushkov Found Strangled To Death In London

By JILL LAWLESS | March 16, 2018 2:51 pm

LONDON (AP) — British police said Friday they have launched a murder investigation into the death of London-based Russian businessman Nikolai Glushkov after an autopsy revealed that he died from compression to the neck.

Counterterrorism detectives are leading the case “because of the associations Mr. Glushkov is believed to have had,” the Metropolitan Police force said.

Russia’s top agency for major crimes, meanwhile, said it has launched its own investigation into Glushkov’s death, which it is probing as murder.

Glushkov, 68, was an associate of Boris Berezovsky, a Russian oligarch and strong Kremlin critic who died under disputed circumstances in 2013.

Glushkov was found dead at his south London home on Monday. His death came a week after former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were left critically ill from nerve agent poisoning in the city of Salisbury.

The London police force said “at this stage there is nothing to suggest any link to the attempted murders in Salisbury,” and they said there was no evidence that Glushkov has been poisoned.

British authorities say the substance that poisoned the Skripals is a powerful Russian-developed nerve agent known as Novichok. A British police officer who responded to the attack in Salisbury is in serious condition, and police say 131 people may have come into contact with the nerve agent.

U.K. police say “there are no wider public health concerns” around the investigation into Glushkov’s death.

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