Lesin who once the head of the the state-controlled Gazprom-Media, also received blunt force injuries to the neck, torso, arms and legs, the US capital’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the Metropolitan Police Department said in a brief statement.
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The 57-year-old was discovered in his room at the Doyle Dupont Circle Hotel in November and Russian media, citing relatives, had previously reported that Mr Lesin suffered a heart attack.
When he died last November, the Russian embassy and state media reported the cause of death as a heart attack.
He declined to say whether the medical examiner’s findings indicate that a crime may have been committed, it said. But she says that the autopsy report, in which a medical examiner interprets the results of the autopsy, was only just completed.
Responding to the reports, the Kremlin on Friday said it expected U.S. authorities to provide it with official information on the investigation’s progress so far.
Mikhail Lesin was a crucial and true member of Putin’s team – the mastermind behind the wholesale takeover of the Russian media landscape of the Kremlin after Mr Putin became president.
District of Columbia police spokesman Officer Hugh Carew confirmed the autopsy results show the cause of Lesin’s death was blunt force trauma to the head, but the manner of death was undetermined.
The investigation was focused on Mr Lesin’s death, but that did not rule out a possible change to a murder probe, said the source. He worked under Putin for roughly 10 years, from 1999 to 2009, first as a press minister and then as an adviser. “We have our diplomatic channels, our immediate partner is the US State Department, but we work with other official organizations as well”, Melnik said, adding that despite their efforts “no information has been provided at this point”. In 2013, Lesin was appointed head of Gazprom-Media, Russias largest media holding, remaining its chief until January of 2015.
Mr Lesin pressed to establish the Russia Today satellite TV channel, later renamed RT, once saying Russia “must do propaganda for ourselves, otherwise we’ll always look like bears”.
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Although friends of Lesin’s said he had been enjoying an early retirement, he had been involved in a media business in the U.S with his son where his role had prompted calls by Senator Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) for an investigation into possible financial malpractice.
