Wagner boss ‘assaulted chef for not serving fresh tomatoes’

THE head of Russia’s Wagner group put a chef in hospital for two months after beating him for serving tomatoes he deemed not to be fresh, an investigation has claimed.

A witness told a French magazine that Yevgeny Prigozhin, sometimes dubbed “Putin’s chef ” for his previous role catering for the Russian president, assaulted a chef after a complaint from a customer at one of his restaurants.

The ex-employee of Mr Prigozhin’s Concord Catering told Society that when a guest returned a dish because the tomatoes were not fresh, “[he] was taken to a cellar and beaten to the point of being hospitalised for two months”.

In another incident, the unnamed witness, who is now in exile outside Russia, said that he saw temporary employees who were accused of stealing food “taken to a forest and beaten”.

“I saw them do it,” he told the magazine. The former worker described Mr Prigozhin as initially “a pleasant person, with a great sense of humour”, but once you were under his orders, he swiftly became terrifying.