A Russian man critical of the Kremlin was strangled in his own home by a third party, a coroner has ruled, after evidence suggested his death was made to look like suicide.
Father-of-two Nikolay Glushkov was found dead in the hallway of his home in New Malden, south-west London, a week after former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were poisoned with nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury.
Paramedics arriving at Mr Glushkov’s home on March 12 2018 immediately raised concerns that he had been killed because of the way suicide paraphernalia appeared to be deliberately placed.
A post-mortem examination report concluded Mr Glushkov, 68, “died at the hands of a third party, due to compression of the neck, followed by the staging of a scene”.