Putin ‘linked’ to mystery death
LONDON: A fashion designer who spent two nights with a Russian whistle-blower before his death in Britain claims the millionaire may have been the victim of state-sponsored killers.
Alexander Perepilichnyy, 44, collapsed and died hours after returning to his Surrey home from a tryst with Elmira Medynska at a Paris hotel.
Ukrainian Medynska, 27, said she had not been surprised to hear the married father-of-two, who had passed information to Swiss prosecutors, was dead.
“It happens to Russian people in London,” she said. “He gave Russian information to Swiss and you can be killed for that.”
Perepilichnyy’s mysterious death is at the centre of claims he was assassinated on the orders of Vladimir Putin or the Russian president’s inner circle.
The businessman had sought refuge in Britain after he was a key witness in a £150 million tax fraud investigation involving corrupt Russian officials. Security sources in the US and Paris are concerned police failed to get to the bottom of the death.
One said: “We strongly believe that Perepilichnyy was assassinated on direct orders from Putin or people close to him.”
Those who lost money in the fraud and Perepilichnyy’s life insurers accuse Surrey police of failing to properly investigate his death – and say he may have been murdered after a poisonous plant was slipped into a soup he ate for lunch.
They claim tests identified a substance matching deadly plant gelsemium in his stomach – but a coroner has warned of “conspiracy theories” during an ongoing inquest. One senior detective said police had found no evidence of poisoning or that Perepilichnyy was in danger.
Medynska this week threw fresh light on the hours before Perepilichnyy’s death on November 10, 2012. The pair spent two nights at a five-star hotel. She said Perepilichnyy’s hands had been shaking as he drank heavily and juggled phone calls. She said she only learnt of the death when his wife, Tatiana, e-mailed several days later and called her “bad words”.
Medynska said authorities should have been asking where her lover’s money came from and whether he had any enemies. Perepilichnyy collapsed and died while jogging near his £3m mansion on a gated estate.
He had fled Moscow after lifting the lid on a massive fraud uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, who subsequently died in prison. Before his death, Perepilichnyy had taken out life insurance worth £3.5m and applied for policies worth another £5m. – Daily Mail