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Former Soviet KGB chief Leonid Shebarshin shoots himself dead in Moscow

Forensic experts and detectives are working on the scene
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, March 30 (Itar-Tass) —— A former Soviet KGB chief shot himself dead in Moscow, the city police told Itar-Tass on Friday.

“The body of Leonid Shebarshin, 76, was found in his apartment at 56, Vtoraya Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street. According to the preliminary information, he shot himself dead,” the police said.

Moscow city police chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev went to the incident scene. The cause and circumstances of the incident are so far unknown, the police said.

Forensic experts and detectives are working on the incident scene. It is unknown whether a suicide note has been found.

Shebarshin was born in Moscow in 1935. He graduated from the MGIMO Moscow State Institute of Foreign Relations and joined the Soviet KGB in 1992. He was a resident intelligence officer under the diplomatic cover in Pakistan, India and Iran and took high-ranking positions in the KGB in 1983. He was appointed as a Deputy Chairman of the KGB in 1989. Shebarshin took no part in the putsch 1991, but headed the KGB for one day only, on August 22, 1991. He retired in September 1991.