Cause of Mikhail Lesin’s Death still Unclear
Assumptions surrounding the fact that Mikhail Lesin, the Russian media magnate who died in the U.S.A., had relations with the FBI has gained new momentum.
Margarita Simonyan, the Editor-in-Chief of the English language television news network, RT and the international news agency Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today), in an interview with Echo of Moscow, urged people not to believe the reports from The Daily Beast that Mikhail Lesin, the former general director of Gazprom Media Holdings, had intended to cooperate with the FBI shortly before his death.
On Sunday, January 10th, The Daily Beast published an article outlining the possible motives that would have led to the cooperation of Mikhail Lesin with FBI agents in an effort to free himself from the control of the Kremlin and “to start a new life.”
The authors of The Daily Beast article allege that Lesin, “could certainly reveal a lot about Putin’s inner circle,” in exchange for preserving his assets in the US. A representative from the Washington Police told The Daily Beast that the circumstances of Lesin’s death “are still being investigated.”
The police indicated that it is taking an unusually long time to uncover the exact cause of death. Lesin was found dead in a Washington hotel on November 6th of last year and will soon be buried in Los Angeles. The Russian media reports that, according to Lesin’s family, he died from a heart attack.
However, Russian and American journalists still return to the subject of Lesin’s mysterious death. In particular, it should be noted that he had come to the US despite his ban on his crossing the border. At the end of July 2014, Roger Wicker, Senator for Mississippi, required the United States’ Attorney to examine the circumstances of a 28 million dollar property purchase in Los Angeles by “the chief of Putin’s propaganda.”
There were some doubts in the US concerning the “legality of Lesin’s income,” as he would not have been able to amass such a fortune from his employment in the Russian government.