LONDON, March 12. /TASS/. British authorities have been unable to provide proof of their progress in investigating Russian businessman Nikolai Glushkov’s murder, which has been going on for a year, the Russian embassy in London said in a statement on Tuesday.
"We have carefully read the statement about the investigation into Russian national Nikolai Glushkov’s murder, issued by the Metropolitan Police on March 11," the statement reads. "We have to say that British law enforcement agencies have once again failed to provide proof of their progress in the year-long investigation. Since August 2018, when the police published some CCTV images of a suspicious black van that had been seen near Glushkov’s home the day before his murder, not a single new detail has come up that would allow the public to judge the investigation’s progress. There is only information about the number of witnesses the police have contacted and the duration of CCTV footage police officers have viewed," the embassy added.
Russian diplomats also pointed out that British police had provided no information about any interim conclusions they might have drawn, preferring to post a letter written by Glushkov’s daughter, in which she called on the public to assist the investigation.
"While law enforcement agencies are silent, the British media continue to publish allegations about ‘a Russian trace’ in Glushkov’s murder, which are impossible to verify, as is the case with the Salisbury incident," the statement adds. "A thing to note is that the police published an official statement only after the embassy had once again publicly pointed out that such a situation was unacceptable and called on London to provide full information about the cause of Glushkov’s death and the investigation’s progress. In this regard, a question arises as to whether British authorities seek to classify this case and eventually put it to rest," the Russian embassy said.
Glushkov’s murder
Former Aeroflot Deputy Director General Nikolai Glushkov was found dead at his London home on March 12, 2018. The Metropolitan Police said he had died from compression to the neck. At the same time, according to media reports, the businessman was strangled with a dog lead so investigators believe that the killer could have aimed at giving his death the appearance of suicide.
The Met Police said there were no signs that Glushkov’s murder was connected with the Skripal poisoning.
On March 16, 2018, Russia’s Investigative Committee launched a criminal investigation into Glushkov’s murder. However, Russia’s embassy in London said that "Great Britain remains deafeningly silent, still refusing to provide answers to questions by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office and the embassy about the murder of a Russian citizen and the attempted murder of Russian citizens on British soil."
Salisbury incident
According to London, former Russian military intelligence Colonel Sergei Skripal, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for Great Britain and later swapped for Russian intelligence officers, and his daughter Yulia suffered the effects of an alleged nerve agent in the British city of Salisbury on March 4, 2018. Claiming that the substance used in the attack had been a Novichok-class nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union, London rushed to accuse Russia of being involved in the incident. Moscow rejected all of the United Kingdom’s allegations.