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Spain gives permission to repatriate body of Russia’s NTV co-founder

The news of Igor Malashenko’s death at the age of 64 came on February 25

MADRID, March 12. /TASS/. A Spanish court has given its permission to repatriate the body of Igor Malashenko, the co-founder of Russia’s NTV channel who died in Spain, to his home country for burial, a source in the Russian embassy in Madrid told TASS.

According to embassy sources, the second court of investigation in the city of San Roque gave its permission to take Igor Malashenko’s body for burial. A Spanish funeral home is dealing with the repatriation process at the request of Malashenko’s family.

The news of Malashenko’s death at the age of 64 came on February 25.

A court in the Spanish region of Andalusia said earlier that the repatriation of the body could only be allowed if police found nothing criminal in Malashenko’s death. The court added that according to the preliminary autopsy report, he is most likely to have committed suicide.

Malashenko was behind Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s 1996 re-election campaign and headed the election team of Russian presidential contender Kseniya Sobchak in 2018.

He was a graduate of Moscow State University's Faculty of Philosophy and, for a period, worked at the Institute of US and Canadian Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In 1992, he became director general of the Ostankino TV and Radio Broadcasting Company and held the position of NTV chief in 1993-1997. In 2000, Malashenko moved to live in the United States but made frequent trips to Spain.