Russian oligarch allegedly killed wife, daughter and himself was murdered, son says – Reuters

Sergey Protosenya, 55, is suspected of killing his wife Natalya and 18-year-old daughter at their villa in Spain, but his son Fedor insists his father is not a killer

A Russian millionaire accused of killing his wife, daughter and himself was actually murdered, according to his son.

Former gas tycoon Sergey Protosenya, 55, allegedly beat his wife Natalya, 53, and daughter Maria, 18, to death with an ax at their luxury Spanish villa before killing himself.

It is one of four recent “suicides” of Russian gas company executives believed to be linked to Vladimir Putin’s circle, with their deaths widely seen as “suspicious”.

Catalan police are still treating the death as a double murder-suicide.

But Mr Protosenya’s son Fedor spoke out on Tuesday insisting his father was not a killer and could never harm his family.

His comments come amid speculation that the crime could be a mafia triple murder disguised as domestic violence.

The 22-year-old university student spoke after arriving at the Costa Brava resort of Lloret de Mar, where his relatives were found dead in their holiday home on April 19.

“My father is not a killer. He loved my mother and especially my sister Maria,” Fedor told Mail Online.

“She was his princess. He could never do anything to hurt them. I don’t know what happened that night, but I know my dad didn’t hurt them.

Josep Milan, regional police chief Mossos d’Esquadra for the province of Girona, which includes Lloret de Mar, recently gave an update on the case.

Speaking ahead of Fedor’s comments, he said: ‘Investigators are focusing on one person who committed suicide and two other people found dead inside a property and that’s what we are looking into.

“Everything indicates that this is a crime of domestic violence, a double murder and a subsequent homicide.”

The police chief called reports of possible Russian mafia involvement in the crime “speculative”.

A Mossos source insisted ‘nothing has changed since Mr Milan spoke out last week’.

They added: “This is still being treated as a double murder followed by a suicide.”

Fedor had stayed at the family home in the French city of Bordeaux while his relatives traveled to Lloret de Mar to spend their Easter holidays at their Catalan villa.

He sounded the alarm through a friend of his father’s last Tuesday morning after his phone calls home went unanswered.

The friend alerted police who found Mr Protosenya hanging lifeless from a noose tied to a garden railing and the bodies of his wife Natalya, 53, and their 18-year-old daughter Maria. inside.

Police have been working on the theory Mr Protosenya, who had been vice-chairman of major Russian gas company Novotek, attacked his daughter with an ax and a knife as she slept before murdering his wife the same manner, then to commit suicide.

Local reports following the grisly discovery said Fedor was quick to sound the alarm when he couldn’t reach his family by phone because he was ‘disturbed’ by the last conversation phone call he had with them last Monday evening.

Spain’s government delegation for gender-based violence has already recorded Sergey’s wife as the 12th person this year in Spain killed by their partner or former partner – and the 1,138th since records began in 2003.

Spain’s equality minister, without waiting for the conclusion of the judicial inquiry into the crime, left little doubt that she believed Mr Protosenya was to blame in her condemnation of the murders last week by describing them as gender-related murders in a press speech.

The results of the autopsies have not been made public as is normal in Spain, although the information released on the ongoing investigation into the crimes has been limited by a confidentiality order issued on them by the investigating judge. .

Confidentiality orders are exceptional measures intended to guarantee the effectiveness of a judicial investigation.
They limit the number of people who have access to the court file, which means for example that the defense lawyers of suspects in cases where the police have doubts about someone cannot see the file as long as the order is in place.

Officials who violate them by revealing sensitive information can be fined or even jailed in some cases.

An interview that the police planned with Mr Protosenya, the autopsies and the analysis of the CCTV cameras of the house in Lloret de Mar as well as telephone recordings, were considered important for the ongoing investigation, but no information on the progress of the investigation has not been made public. .

Days before the Lloret de Mar discovery, the body of Vladislav Avayev, 51, was found in his elite Moscow penthouse alongside his wife Yelena, 47, and daughter Maria, 13, in another apparent murder-suicide.

Avayev was previously vice president of Gazprombank – a bank set up to work for Russian gas giant Gazprom – and had also served as a Kremlin official.

In both cases, suspicions have been raised that the deaths may have been staged as suicides.

Read more

Read more