New York medical examiners investigating the mysterious death of a Russian diplomat are contradicting the police conclusions in the case.
Sergei Krivov, a 63-year-old security officer, was found dead on the morning of Election Day – November 8 – at the Russian Consulate in New York.
Initially, the New York Police Department ruled that the death was caused by a head wound, according to BuzzFeed.
But the city’s medical examiner now says that Krivov died of internal bleeding related to a tumor.
‘The medical examiner’s findings do not include head trauma,’ Julie Bolcer, a spokesperson for the Medical Examiner’s office, told BuzzFeed when asked about the discrepancy.
‘The medical examiner did not find that. That is not in the findings.’
The examiner’s conclusions add another wrinkle to the odd case, which apparently also involved the FBI despite earlier denials.
The bureau helped the NYPD investigate Krivov’s death, according to BuzzFeed.
A US intelligence official told BuzzFeed that the FBI failed to find anything suspicious in Krivov’s death.
Neither the FBI or the NYPD was willing to comment on the BuzzFeed story.
Initially, there were reports that Krivov died after falling from the roof of the consulate.
But Russian officials then said that the cause of death was a heart attack that made him fall and hit his head.
The NYPD closed the case without specifying a cause of death.
Krivov was known to be in charge of a top-secret encryption program that encoded and decoded messages sent between the consulate and Moscow.
That means it was his responsibility to prevent US spy agencies from bugging the consulate.
Though he was believed to have resided in Manhattan, Krivov’s name does not appear in public records.
The only address on file was a building that isn’t even a residence.
The building at 11 East 90th Street is an office building owned by the Smithsonian to service its neighboring Cooper Hewitt design museum.
Krivov is the seventh Russian diplomat or top government official to die under less-than-clear circumstances since November, according to Axios.
On December 19, Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, was assassinated by a gun-wielding Turkish police officer at a photo exhibit in Ankara.
On the same day, another diplomat, Peter Polshikov, was shot dead in his Moscow apartment.
Polshikov was shot in the head by an assailant while he was home with his wife in the Balaklavsky Prospekt section of the Russian capital.
He was said to be a high-ranking diplomat who worked in the Latin American department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, according to the Mirror.
A week later, Oleg Erovinkin, the former head of the KGB, was found dead in the back of his car, according to The Telegraph.
Erovinkin, who was an aide to former deputy prime minister Igor Sechin, is suspected of helping former British spy Christopher Steele compile the now-infamous dossier that contained unconfirmed allegations against President Donald Trump.
On January 9, Andrei Malanin, the Russian consul in Athens, was found dead in his apartment.
Greek police said they found no evidence of a break-in. There has also been no definitive conclusion as to what or who caused the death.
In late January, Moscow’s ambassador to India, Alexander Kadakin, died after suffering from ‘a brief illness.’ He was 67 years old.
Officials said he died of a heart attack, according to The Hindu.
Russia’s combative ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, died suddenly in New York after being taken ill at work, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on February 21.
The ministry gave no details on the circumstances of his death but offered condolences to his relatives and said the diplomat had died one day before his 65th birthday.
It declined to comment on reports that Churkin had been taken to a hospital shortly before his death.
A US government official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the case, said that Churkin had died of an apparent heart attack.
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