Russian officials complain they’ve been frustrated in repeated efforts to get information about the mysterious death of Mikhail Lesin, a former aide to President Vladimir Putin whose battered body was found in a Washington hotel room four months ago.
Advertisement
Found dead… Ex-Putin aide Mikhail Lesin was found dead and badly beaten in the Doyle Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, D.C. last November.
The autopsy also revealed blunt force injuries to Lesin’s neck, torso, arms and legs, in addition to trauma to his head. Andrew Ames, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, also had no comment.
Lesin was for quite a long time considered among the very powerful figures on the Russian media landscape as well as in the hallways of power.
The manner of death remains undetermined, the brief statement said – meaning the medical examiner’s office had not determined whether a crime, an accident, or other circumstances were involved.
A USA law enforcement source said on Thursday the investigation into Lesin’s death was being led by Washington, D.C. police.
Credited for setting up Russia Today, the nation’s first state-funded English-language news channel, he was known as one the country’s most influential media operators and a long-time confidant to President Putin.
Lesin held the post of Russia’s Minister for the Press, TV and Radio Broadcasting and Mass Communications between July 1999 and February 2004. President Vladimir Putin pressed North Korea on Friday to forge a new Asia-Europe freight route by extending Russia’s trans-Siberian railway across the Korean peninsula to bypass China.
In Moscow, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the Russian Embassy in Washington has received no “substantive information” about Lesin’s death despite repeated inquiries through diplomatic channels, and was only aware of media reports about the autopsy.
He later became head of Gazprom-Media, Russia’s largest media holding company, in 2013 but resigned the following year.
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.
Advertisement
Russian media had reported he had suffered a heart attack and cited relatives.
