Self-exiled tycoon Yevgeny Chichvarkin said Sunday that he believed his mother, found dead in her Moscow apartment, was murdered.
Chichvarkin, a flamboyant former mobile phone retailer fighting extradition from London, contradicted official reports of a domestic accident after Lyudmila Chichvarkina was found dead with a head injury on Saturday.
"I think it was a murder. The whole apartment is stained with blood. My father saw it, and our housemaid also saw it," Chichvarkin told Russian News Service radio.
"I'm not accusing anyone, I don't have any grounds for that," Chichvarkin said, with an audible tremble in his voice.
Prosecutors have charged Chichvarkin with extortion and kidnapping while part of an organized criminal group. Chichvarkin denies the charges, which are linked to his former business empire, Yevroset, and has said in the past he would be killed if he returned to Russia.
Law enforcement officials said Sunday that Chichvarkina, 60, had slipped and hit her temple on the corner of a table.
"The woman tripped on a tile in the kitchen. The apartment door was locked from the inside," an unidentified official told Interfax.
The Investigative Committee said it was conducting an inquiry but had found no signs of a crime.
"If there are signs of foul play, a criminal case will be opened. If Chichvarkin's mother's death was the result of natural causes, a criminal case will be rejected," said Anatoly Bagmet, head of the Investigative Committee's Moscow office, Interfax reported.
Chichvarkin faces arrest if he returns to Russia for his mother's funeral.
A British court has delayed hearing a Russian request to extradite him until August. Chichvarkin could be the first person to be extradited from Britain to Russia if he loses his legal battle.
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