Hollywood star plans movie on 14 Moscow-linked deaths
George Clooney’s film production company has picked up the rights to an investigation into a series of deaths allegedly linked to Russia – including that of a Scottish property tycoon.
The death of Scot Young, who was impaled on railings after falling from a fourthfloor luxury flat in London in 2014 and initally blamed on suicide, triggered a series of stories by news site Buzzfeed. Their two-year ‘From Russia with Blood’ investigation uncovered evidence pointing to Russia which the police overlooked – and that Young, 52, from Dundee, was one of a number of men who died under suspicious circumstances in the UK after making enemies in Russia.
Buzzfeed said their investigation published in 2017 had uncovered 14 suspicious deaths linked to the Russian state, where foul play had been ruled out by the UK police.
It is being turned into a film by Clooney’s company Smokehouse Pictures, which is behind Hollywood movies such as Ocean’s 8 and The Men Who Stare at Goats.
In March this year, the-then Home Secretary Amber Rudd said police and MI5 would look again at the 14 cases after the poisoning of former Russian spyturned-defector Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.
But earlier this month the government said the police had found there was no basis on which to reopen any of the investigations.