REUTERS

A murder investigation has been launched following the results of a post mortem into the death of 68-year-old Russian businessman, former Aeroflot top executive Nikolay Glushkov.

On Monday, 12 March, Glushkov was found dead at his home in New Malden, according to Metropolitan police.

A special post mortem began on Thursday, 15 March and we received the pathologist report today, March 16,  which gave the cause of death as compression to the neck.

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Glushkov was best known for being a close associate of the Russian oligarch and prominent Putin critic Boris Berezovsky, who was found dead on the bathroom floor of his ex-wife's house in Ascot, southeast England, in 2013, Business Insider reports.

Shortly after Berezovsky's death, Glushkov told The Guardian that he was also a target of the Russian government.

He alleged that both Berezovsky and Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy who was fatally poisoned in 2006, had been on a Kremlin hit list.

Glushkov said at the time: "I don't see anyone left on it apart from me."