Russian ‘diplomat’ shot dead at his home hours after ambassador’s murder: reports
- By Web Desk -
- Dec 20, 2016
MOSCOW: Hours after a gruesome murder of Russian ambassador to Ankara, a high-ranking Russian diplomat has been found dead from gunshot wounds at his home in Moscow, reports said.
Petr Polshikov, 56, was found with a bullet wound to his head at his home in Moscow’s Balaklavsky Prospekt, according to the Daily Mail.
Footage of the crime scene shown on Ren TV came just hours after news broke of the assassination of Russian ambassador to Ankara, Andrey Karlov in the Turkish capital Ankara.
Karlov was shot in the back at an art gallery by an off-duty cop who reportedly shouted out “God is great” and “Don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria” as he fired.
Mevlut Mert Altinta, a 22-year-old, Turkish policeman fired at least eight times as Mr Karlov gave a speech before he died after a 15-minute shootout with police.
Reports said the diplomat’s wife was in the flat at the time of the shooting, and is safe.
Polshikov was believed to be a senior figure in the Latin American department of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Some reports said that the diplomat had left the Foreign Ministry but it was unclear if he worked for any other branch of the Russian government.
But according to Metro UK, a Kremlin spokeswoman has cast doubt over the murder claims – by saying they had never heard of an official by that name.
‘We don’t know any official with this name,’ she told Metro. ‘We haven’t seen anything about this in the Russian news either, and so we have no statement to make about it.’
Reports said the diplomat had served previously at the Russian embassy in Bolivia.