... and found dead in London, another of his enemies

Unexplained death: Nikolai Glushkov

COUNTER-TERRORISM police are probing the unexplained death of a friend of an enemy of Vladimir Putin.

The body of Nikolai Glushkov, 69, was found by his daughter at his home in south London on Monday night.

The businessman had ‘strangulation’ marks around his neck and may have killed himself, a Russian newspaper reported.

He worked for Boris Berezovsky until the billionaire fell out with Mr Putin and fled to Britain. Mr Glushkov was held at the notorious Lefortovo Prison for five years until being cleared of fraud and money laundering while working for Aeroflot.

He was instead convicted of ‘abuse of authority’ in a plot supposedly orchestrated by Andrei Lugovoi. Now a Russian MP, Mr Lugovoi is the prime suspect for the polonium-210 murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London.

Mr Glushkov was one of the last survivors from a circle of exiles led by Mr Berezovsky, who was described as President Putin’s ‘personal enemy number one’.

Mr Berezovsky was found dead at his Surrey mansion in 2013. A coroner recorded an open verdict and Mr Glushkov had insisted the oligarch was assassinated.

Another of Mr Glushkov’s close acquaintances, Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili, 52, also died in mysterious circumstances.

Scotland Yard said yesterday that there was, as yet, no evidence to link Mr Glushkov’s death to the nerve agent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury.

But it sent officers from its Counter Terrorism Command, overseen by the security services MI5 and MI6. Last night, uniformed police officers expanded the cordon around the house as colleagues in forensic outfits undertook a fingertip search.

Mr Berezovsky’s son-in-law Yegor Shuppe said the death was suspicious, adding: ‘In my opinion the cause is not any disease. It does not correlate. He did not have a sickness to die from. We helped him get good surgery, I often visited him.

‘It was not the disease that prevented him from living. I’m not an investigator, but it looks strange.’

Alexander Goldfarb, one of Mr Berezovsky’s closest confidants, said the timing rang alarm bells.

He said: ‘This looks very suspicious because of the recent attack on double agent Skripal.’

But a Glushkov family friend said: ‘Nikolai was sick, he had blood disease. And even in Moscow he was already registered as disabled. He was a good family man, he loved children. His relatives don’t believe that this was a violent death.’

Last night, Mr Glushkov’s neighbours in New Malden described being roused from their beds by detectives in the early hours.

They woke up to discover similar scenes to those in Salisbury with forensic tents covering the front of the £400,000 property.

Officers had been called shortly before 11pm on Monday to reports of a death at the address. Mr Glushkov had slipped out of public view at the anonymous rented terraced home on the outskirts of the capital. Before his arrest in Russia the businessman had been living in fear, with friends telling him he ‘would be run over by a truck’.

He sought asylum in Britain in 2010 while faced with fresh claims of fraud and embezzlement in his homeland.

Last year he was handed a second eight-year sentence in his absence and a huge fine for allegedly stealing around £90million from Aeroflot.

Mr Glushkov had two grown-up children, Natasha and Dima, and an ex-wife who lives in Moscow.

His daughter, aged in her 20s, attended a Swiss finishing school and lives in London. His son is based in Russia.

Neighbours said he was often seen with his dog and was up and walking again after recently undergoing an operation for arthritis.

One said: ‘He was such a lovely man. He had a very bad leg and recently had a big operation.

‘But he was improving and said soon he would be going round without his stick and walking properly. He was in a lot of pain with it. He told me he had heart problems too.

‘I was round for dinner with him when he first moved in and he mentioned to me that we should ‘appreciate democracy’ more.

‘He never went into any detail, we were talking about countries and he was telling me about his home in Georgia which has wonderful wildlife. I never knew what his job was.’

Another neighbour added: ‘He

‘Forensic tents outside home’

never mentioned his work – he was intelligent and very well-mannered. He had very good English.

‘He was very generous and friendly. At Christmas he gave us beautiful champagne. He didn’t go out much because of his illnesses, he had something wrong with his heart and had a few strokes.’

Vasily Trunin, a friend and former colleague, wrote online that Mr Glushkov was responsible for rescuing Aeroflot from ‘the Soviet backwater’. He said: ‘A great shame. He was a good friend.’

The Metropolitan Police said a post-mortem examination would take place. A spokesman added: ‘The death is being treated as unexplained. At this stage the Met Police Counter Terrorism Command is leading 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.’

Home Secretary Amber Rudd has ordered an official inquiry into 14 deaths in Britain that may be connected to Russia.

In a letter made public on Tuesday, Miss Rudd she said: ‘In the weeks to come, I will want to satisfy myself that the allegations are nothing more than that.’