Madrid. Maybe there is a pattern, maybe the pattern only appears in the eye of the suspicious observer. Since late January, six wealthy Russian businessmen have died in more or less strange circumstances. Most recently, former gas salesman Sergej Protosenja, who was found hanged in the backyard of his holiday home in Lloret de Mar, on Spain’s Costa Brava. His wife and daughter also died a violent death.
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A day earlier, the body of former Gazprombank vice president Vladislav Avayev, who apparently shot his wife and daughter and then himself, was found in Moscow. Journalists in Spain and the United States began investigating and found four other deaths that year that they thought were suspicious. Maybe there are connections, maybe not.
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The investigators responsible in the most recent Spanish case are taking on a family drama. The police report, quoted by “El País” on Wednesday, mentions traces of blood on the tracksuit of 55-year-old Protosenja, which indicate he first killed his wife and daughter before hanging himself. Of course, these clues can also be brought up by professional assassins.
Son doesn’t believe in police theory
In any case, the surviving son of the family, who was in France at the time of the crime, does not want to believe that his father killed his mother and sister first and then himself. “My father is not a murderer,” Fedor Protosenya told British media. “He loved my mother and especially Maria, my sister. She was his princess.”
Andreu Garrigó, founder and president of Catrus Capital, who met Protosenja through business contacts, is also skeptical. “Many here think it might be an order,” Garrigó said in an interview with German television broadcaster RTL. But he didn’t say who the customer should be.
The late Protosenya was on the board of Russia’s largest private energy company, Nowatek, until 2015, when he apparently retired a multimillionaire. His fortune is estimated at around 300 to 400 million euros.
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notable deaths
In an article on Tuesday, American business magazine Fortune compiled the list of notable deaths of Russian businessmen this year. After that, in late January, Leonid Shulman, a top manager at Gazprom, apparently committed suicide. Four weeks later, another Gazprom manager, Alexander Tyulyakov, reportedly hanged himself near St. Petersburg.
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Three days later, Russian-Ukrainian oil baron Mikhail Watford died, also hanged, in the garage of his home in Surrey, UK. On March 24, another millionaire Vasily Melnikov, reportedly in the bathtub of his Russian apartment, slashed his wrists after stabbing his wife and two children – his neighbors refuse to believe it. Avayev and Protosenya’s deaths followed.
It is quite possible that the latest case will soon be filed as a double homicide followed by suicide. Despite all doubts.
Do you or someone you know have suicidal thoughts? Then contact the following numbers:
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Telephone hotline (free, 24 hours a day), also information about emergency services:
(0800) 111 0 111 (Protestant)
(0800) 111 0 222 (Roman Catholic)
(0800) 111 0 333 (for children/teens)
On the Internet: www.telefonseelsorge.de