‘POISON SOUP VICTIM GOT BLACKMAIL TEXT’
Inquest told of threat a year before his death
A RUSSIAN businessman allegedly killed with poisoned sorrel soup was sent a threatening text a year earlier, an inquest heard.
Alexander Perepilichnyy, 44, died while jogging near his £3million home in 2012 after helping to expose a £150million money-laundering scam.
The Old Bailey was told he got a text in June 2011 that said: “You will go to prison really seriously for long. I can do that. If you want to live free and happily pay 300,000 rubles (£6,000).”
Mr Perepilichnyy’s widow, Tatiana, told the court she did not know who sent it and her husband had not feared for his life. And asked if she believed he had been killed, she said: “No.”
Mr Perepilichnyy’s death was put down to natural causes but traces of a chemical found in the poisonous plant Gelsemium elegans were later found in his stomach. It is suggested the poison was switched with the herb sorrel in the soup he ate before his run. Mrs Perepilichnaya said her husband returned to their home in Weybridge, Surrey, from Paris on November 10, 2012. She said he looked “absolutely normal” and they chatted before he ate the soup – which she had tried twice herself. Peter Skelton QC, counsel for the coroner, asked: “Did Alexander eat anything else before he went for his run?”
She replied: “I didn’t see him chewing anything but I did see him standing by the cupboard.”
Speaking from behind a screen, she denied Mr Perepilichnyy fell out with Russian mafia or they fled to England because he owed money.
Asked if they feared for their safety, she said: “Alexander never had a bodyguard or security, our life in Russia and our life in England never varied.”
Mr Skelton asked: “Did Alexander mention he lost money to people in Russia he invested for them?” She replied: “No.”
The inquest will look at whether Mr Perepilichnyy was poisoned and who might have had a motive to murder him.
The inquest opened in 2014 but hit delays after the Government applied for sensitive information to be kept out of the public domain. The hearing is expected to last four weeks.