Nikolai Glushkov, a Russian businessman the UK refused to extradite to Russia on fraud changes, has died in his London home, his Russian lawyer Andrei Borovkov told the Echo Moscow radio station Tuesday.
British police confirmed they were investigating the death of a man in his 60s in southwest London, but did not identify him.
Police said the death was being treated as “unexplained,” adding that the counterterrorism team would lead the investigation “as a precaution because of associations that the man is believed to have had.”
“There is no evidence to suggest a link to the incident in Salisbury,” police added, referring to the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
According to the Russian Embassy in London, the UK refused to extradite Glushkov back in February 2016 on charges of large-scale fraud and embezzlement during his time as the deputy director of the Russian airline Aeroflot.
Acquaintances in London
The émigré was acquainted with Russians who died in unexplained circumstances in the UK.
Glushkov was questioned as part of a British inquiry into the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko who died a slow and painful death after drinking tea laced with highly radioactive polonium-210 in 2006 in a hotel bar in London.
Glushkov told the inquiry that he bumped into Litvinenko in the office of Boris Berezovsky, a powerful oligarch an émigré who was found dead in 2013 on the bathroom floor of his home in Berkshire, on the western outskirts of London. British police said at the time they found no sign of a struggle, suggesting Berezovsky had taken his own life.
Glushkov was a friend of Berezovsky and was outspoken in his claims that he believed the oligarch was murdered.
Developing story, more to follow…