A senior Russian official has been found dead at the country’s embassy in Cyprus, with a post-mortem finding the cause was unnatural and “probably suicide”, a police source told AFP on Monday.
The man’s body was discovered inside his office last Thursday and police were called to the embassy, but officers were not permitted to enter the complex to investigate, local media reported.
Instead the body was handed over to police in the embassy courtyard.
“A body was found on the premises. Any further inquiries must be addressed to the embassy,” the police official told AFP.
In a brief statement, the embassy named the man as A.V. Panov, and called his death “a deeply personal tragedy for his family and loved ones”.
The embassy said it was working with local authorities to “expedite the repatriation of his remains to his homeland”.
The local Phileleftheros newspaper reported that the only information provided to Cypriot police was that the Russian national took his own life and had left a note.
But the note was reportedly not passed to Cypriot authorities because the embassy sent it to Moscow, the paper said.
Cypriot authorities “appear to have been informed of the incident with a delay of several hours”, Phileleftheros added.
The Cypriot Foreign Ministry is reportedly monitoring the case.