UK Focuses on Media Speculations Instead of Working With Russia – Embassy

18:48 GMT, 8 September 2018

LONDON (Sputnik) – The UK authorities are refusing to cooperate with Russia on investigation into the death of Nikolai Glushkov, the former top manager of Russian flag carrier Aeroflot, and focusing on leaking to press the theories comfortable for the US government, a press secretary of the Russian Embassy to London told Sputnik on Saturday.

Sputnik

Glushkov, who had been sentenced in absentia in Russia to eight years in prison on embezzlement charges, died in London in mid-March. The UK police are treating the probe into his death as a murder inquiry. In Russia, an investigation has been opened as well.

"We have to admit that London is refusing to cooperate [with Russia] on investigation into the strange death of former top manager of Aeroflot Nikolai Glushkov on March 12, leaking more and more versions comfortable for the Conservative government to mass media," the press secretary said.

On Friday, The Guardian newspaper reported that the UK police was also probing an earlier poisoning attempt on Glushkov, which occurred back in 2013.

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"The UK press is speaking about an event that occurred five years ago, which clearly has nothing to do with the death of the Russian citizen. The Embassy has sent several notes to the Foreign Office as well as submitted an official request of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office to the UK Home Office on the criminal case over the death of Nikolai Glushkov. We have not received any answer yet. We are once again facing the UK's non-implementation of its commitments under the 1959 European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters," the press secretary added.

Russia and the United Kingdom are also engaged in a dispute over the investigation of another incident — attempted poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury — with London accusing Moscow of orchestrating the attack and Russia refuting all the allegations.