Russian exile found dead in his London home was murdered, police say

British police launched a murder investigation Friday into the death of Russian businessman Nikolai Glushkov, whose body was found in his London home earlier this week.

The police findings will significantly ratchet up pressure in the already high-stakes standoff between Russia and Britain, which has seen the British government slap sanctions on Moscow for what Prime Minister Theresa May called “an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom.”

Things have escalated quickly since U.K. police determined Russia was behind a chemical attack on a former double agent and his daughter in the English town of Salisbury on March 4. Backed by the U.S., Germany and France, Britain has put the blame squarely on the Kremlin.

Read: U.K. retaliates after Russia fails to explain poisoning of ex-spy

Russia has denied any involvement, calling the international accusations against it “shocking and unforgivable,” and vowing to retaliate with sanctions of its own.

Scotland Yard announced Friday that it was investigating Glushkov’s death as a murder, after a pathologist’s report gave the 68-year-old’s cause of death as compression to the neck.

Police had said Tuesday that counterterrorism officers would lead the investigation into his death “as a precaution because of associations that the man is believed to have had.”

Glushkov had been a friend of the late Boris Berezovsky, a powerful Russian oligarch and opponent of Vladimir Putin who was found hanged in his U.K. home in 2013. It has been widely speculated in Britain that Moscow played a role in Berezovsky’s death, and the coroner returned an open verdict. Glushkov himself had told the British press that he didn’t believe his friend had killed himself.

Read: What happens when Russia ignores the U.K.'s ultimatum over nerve agent attack

Glushkov also reportedly knew Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian FSB agent who went on to work with MI6 after fleeing to the UK, and was killed by Kremlin assassins in 2006 with a radioactive cup of tea.

Glushkov had been deputy director of the Russian national airline Aeroflot, before he was jailed for five years in 1999 for money laundering and fraud. After another fraud sentence in 2006, he fled to the U.K. where he was granted political asylum, and became an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Guardian reported that at the time of his death, Glushkov was preparing to defend a claim against him by Aeroflot in a London court, where he stood accused of fraud by the Russian authorities.

His body was found Monday night at his address in New Malden, southwest London, where he had lived for two years.

Police said in a statement Friday that there was nothing at this stage to suggest any link to the attempted murders in Salisbury, nor any evidence that Glushkov was poisoned.

Cover image: Forensics investigators work at the home of Nikolai Glushkov in New Malden, on the outskirts of London, Britain, March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls