UK investigating Russian businessman’s death as a homicide: report

Police in the United Kingdom are investigating the death of a Russian businessman in London as a homicide. 

The Associated Press reported Friday that U.K. police are looking at the Monday death of Nikolai Glushkov as a possible murder, after an autopsy revealed that he died from compression to the neck.

Glushkov, 68, was an associate of Boris Berezovsky, a Russian oligarch and critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was found dead in his home in 2013 under suspicious circumstances.

{mosads}Glushkov was found dead in his home on Monday. 

Glushkov’s death came after the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, with a military-grade nerve agent in the English city of Salisbury. U.K. officials have blamed the attack on Moscow.

The Russians have denied any involvement in the poisonings of the Skripals. Still, the episode has escalated tensions between Russia and the U.K.

British Prime Minister Theresa May moved this week to expel 23 Russian diplomats from the U.K. in response to the poisonings. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Reuters on Friday that Moscow would, in turn, remove British diplomats from Russia.

According to the AP, police said that “at this stage, there is nothing to suggest any link to the attempted murders in Salisbury.”

Counterterrorism investigators are handling the case surround Glushkov’s death “because of the associations Mr. Glushkov is believed to have had.”