Strangulation on the Thames

Partner and friend of Boris Berezovsky Nikolai Glushkov found dead in London.
14.03.2018
Kommersant
Origin source
The body of the 68-year-old former deputy director of Aeroflot Nikolay Glushkov, who was sentenced in absentia at home for fraud, was found in his house in London. According to some reports, the corpse had traces of suffocation, but the police have not confirmed the violent nature of the death of a runaway Russian. Nor does it connect the death of Mr Glushkov with the poisoning in Salisbury of the former GRU colonel Sergei Skripal and his daughter. However, the investigation of both incidents is conducted by the anti-terrorist unit of Scotland Yard, and some of the shelters in England have already been provided with protection.

On the discovery of the body of 68-year-old Nikolai Glushkov to the police on Monday at 22:46 local time, his daughter Natalya, who came to visit her father, reported. In recent years, Mr. Glushkov, according to his London acquaintances, lived in a townhouse on Clarence Avenue in Kingston County on the Thames on the southwestern outskirts of Greater London. He had no protection, no servants. Allegedly, the daughter who came to visit discovered traces of strangulation on his father's body. However, the interlocutors of "Kommersant" from the environment of the former top manager of Aeroflot could not explain whether it was outwardly similar to suicide, premeditated murder or an accident. Meanwhile, police officers have cautiously called the death of Mr. Glushkov "inexplicable", saying that its reasons can be said only after a number of examinations. Neighbors also could not help the law enforcers, saying that they had not noticed anything suspicious lately. According to them, Nikolay Glushkov led a quiet lifestyle, appeared on the street with a dog, and at Christmas gave gifts to neighboring children.

It should be noted that a few months ago, while talking to a Kommersant correspondent on the phone, the businessman did not express any fears for life a few months ago, stating that he was now little interested in the actions of Russian law enforcers who had obtained conviction and were put on international wanted list. Mr. Glushkov recalled his former acquaintances in AvtoVAZ, whom he had not spoken to for a long time. He told funny stories from his life. Most of all Nikolay Glushkov at that time was interested in preparations for hearings in the High Court of London, where Aeroflot filed a lawsuit seeking recovery of multi-million losses caused by the actions of the former top manager (Aeroflot itself abstained from commenting yesterday). At the hearing, the businessman promised to promulgate certain documents confirming his non-involvement in theft. About this, "Kommersant" said and the friend of the deceased, an emigrant from the USSR, Alexander Goldfarb, who heads the "Civil Liberties Foundation". "The last time I saw him (Glushkov.-" Kommersant ") was seen in London in 2016 at the hearings in the Litvinenko case," Mr. Goldfarb said. "He did not look depressed, he was in normal physical form, in general, no matter what complained. But two years have passed since that meeting. And I can not say what could change during this time. " According to him, the former top manager of Aeroflot never spoke about threats to him. "I know that his relatives often visited him, with whom, according to my information, he had good relations," said Alexander Goldfarb, who was also a good acquaintance of Boris Berezovsky. The latter, by the way, Nikolai Glushkov called in his interview to the media "his only friend." However, he categorically denied his suicide (March 23, 2013), explaining that, despite the depression, it was not at all correlated with the character of this strong man.

Meanwhile, representatives of the British police have already stated that they have not yet linked the death of the former top manager of Aeroflot to the poisoning in Salisbury of ex-colonel GRU Sergey Skripal and his daughter. Nevertheless, the verification of the circumstances of Mr. Glushkov's death, as well as the events in Salisbury, is again entrusted to the anti-terrorist unit of Scotland Yard. At the same time, according to Kommersant sources, a number of Russian citizens granted asylum in the UK were given protection. "After poisoning in Salisbury, under the window of my house a police car is constantly on duty," said one of the Russian political emigres.

Recall that the last verdict to Nikolay Glushkov was made by the Savyolovsky District Court of Moscow in absentia in June last year. He was found guilty of a particularly large fraud (Part 4, Article 159 of the Criminal Code) and sentenced to eight years in a colony of general regime and a fine of 1 million rubles. In addition, Aeroflot's civil claim for $ 122,624,085.43 was partially satisfied. This amount, equivalent to the end of the 90's more than 751 million rubles., Was held in the criminal case as abducted by Mr. Glushkov and his accomplices between April 1996 and April 1999. Representatives of Aeroflot as the injured party also demanded to collect interest for the use of money, but the court invited them to file such a claim in the civil litigation. Mr. Glushkov's lawyer filed an appeal against the verdict, believing that by taking him to court, the court did not take into account such mitigating circumstances as age and state of health. In addition, the lawyer noted that Mr. Glushkov had accomplices, but the court decided to recover the amount of the one stolen from him, as well as the fact that Aeroflot had managed to apply to the High Court of London with the claims "in fact for the same amount" that was recovered in the Russian court.

According to the investigation, later confirmed by several court decisions, in the mid-1990s Boris Berezovsky introduced several of his close associates to the management of Aeroflot, including Alexander Krasnenker, Lidia Kryzhevskaya and Nikolai Glushkov. With the latter, the scandalous oligarch worked together since the 1980s - first in LogoVAZ, and then at AvtoVAZ. In 1999, all of them, including Boris Berezovsky, became involved in a criminal case, in which it was about sending $ 252 million to the Swiss firm Andava in 1996, co-owned by Nikolai Glushkov and Boris Berezovsky, the foreign exchange earnings of Aeroflot, which was stolen.

With Mr. Berezovsky, the charges were first lifted, and the remaining three were convicted in 2004 only for abuse of authority, giving the terms corresponding to the person who was detained in the SIZO, or amnestied. Later the verdict was canceled, and the process began anew, but ended for the suspects with suspended sentences. Only Alexander Krasnenker, who died of cancer, was not convicted. Mr. Glushkov then left for Britain, where he was granted political asylum in 2010. Meanwhile, the investigation into the "Aeroflot case" continued. First in 2007, in absentia in Moscow for a 6-year sentence, Boris Berezovsky was convicted, and last year a similar "virtual" verdict was handed down to Nikolai Glushkov. They themselves without much interest watched what is happening in Russia, sometimes even forbidding their advocates to participate in the processes, calling them "a political farce."

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