© picture alliance / TheKremlinMoscow-SvenSimon | The Kremlin Moscow
Prominent Russian journalist Grigory Nekhoroshev (69), who in 2008 was the first to reveal President Vladimir Putin’s relationship with Olympic gymnast Alina Kabayeva, was found dead under suspicious circumstances in Riga, the Latvian capital where he had been living in exile as a political refugee for 11 years.
Nekhoroshev died last Friday after eating poisonous mushrooms from his garden. Although he was a mushroom expert and enthusiast, many are questioning the circumstances of his death, seeing as, in recent years, he had been nervous and fearful of an attack by hitmen working on Putin’s orders.
In 2008, as editor-in-chief of Moskovsky Korrespondent, Nekhoroshev broke a strict taboo by publishing a story about Putin’s private life. He wrote about rumors that Kabayeva was the Russian president’s secret girlfriend and the mother of at least two of his children. The Kremlin never confirmed the relationship, and Putin was furious. Days after the revelation, the newspaper was shut down in retaliation. Nekhoroshev was interrogated several times by the FSB and left Russia for good in 2014, following the annexation of Crimea. He settled in Latvia as a political refugee.
Picture: © picture alliance / TheKremlinMoscow-SvenSimon | The Kremlin Moscow