Documents shed light on issues of mystery death
Minutes released for crucial meeting
INVESTIGATORS KEPT authorities in the dark for days about issues arising from the mysterious death of a Russian whistle-blower, confidential police documents have now revealed.
When news finally broke that multi-millionaire Alexander Perepilichnyy had died on British soil, Surrey Police set about stemming the tide with “bland and simple” statements.
But the case had already sparked interest in Westminster, including from Surrey MPs Philip Hammond, then-Defence Secretary, and Dominic Raab.
Mr Perepilichnyy collapsed and died while out jogging near his home in Weybridge, Surrey, on November 10, 2012.
At the time, he had been helping prominent Kremlin critic Bill Browder’s firm Hermitage Capital Management to uncover a 230m US dollar (£150m) fraud, the Old Bailey has heard.
Coroner Nicholas Hilliard QC has been examining whether Mr Perepilichnyy died of natural causes or could have been poisoned. Giving evidence last year, Detective Superintendent Ian Pollard insisted there had been no evidence of “third party” involvement.
But Mr Browder, who describes himself as Mr Putin’s “number one enemy”, criticised the investigation, citing a “horrible lack of response” to a letter in 2012 which highlighted the possible link to organised crime and urged police to investigate Mr Perepilichnyy’s death as a potential murder.
He said: “When we learned about it, we got in touch with the police on 17 November with
We asked them to investigate his death as a potential murder... Bill Browder
a letter from our law firm... alerting them to the fact that he was a whistle-blower who had been co-operating with authorities and exposing Russian organised crime.
“And we asked them to investigate his death as a potential murder and asked them to as quickly as possible secure the evidence and look for toxicology tests, based on the murder by poison of Alexander Litvinenko. The police didn’t respond.”
Following a request from media and Hermitage, Mr Hilliard released two pages of minutes from a meeting on the investigation on December 10, 2012.
The “Operational Daphne Gold Group” meeting was chaired by Assistant Chief Constable Olivia Pinkney. Ms Pinkney told the gathering there were missed opportunities to alert senior management to concerns surrounding Mr Perepilichnyy’s death.
Under the heading “organisational learning”, she noted: “There are three areas where it appears the opportunity was missed to raise this death as a concern/issue to Senior Management within Surrey Police.”
She cited the letter of November 17, referral to “Special Branch” and a phone inquiry from The Independent, which broke the story on November 27 2012.
The article led several newspapers, Sky and the BBC to follow up on the story, the minutes stated. Mr Hilliard is expected to hear closing submissions from the interested parties in the inquest at a hearing in September.