Russian diplomats pressed British officials for information Tuesday after media reports said a Russian family of three had jumped to their deaths from an apartment building in Glasgow after being denied asylum.
The crumpled bodies of Serge Serykh, 43, his wife Tatyana and his stepson, aged about 20, were found Sunday morning outside of a 30-story building where the family was facing eviction from an apartment on the 15th floor, British media reported.
But three days after their deaths, Russian and British officials had yet to confirm the nationalities of those killed and the circumstances that had led to their apparent suicides.
"We have been informed about the tragic incident, but at the moment we have no official information about whether those people were Russians," a Foreign Ministry spokesman told The Moscow Times on Tuesday afternoon.
Serykh had appealed for asylum on the grounds that he feared Canadian security agents might kill him after he unveiled a plot between Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the Times of London reported Tuesday.
The Times reported Monday that Serykh believed that he had uncovered a plot by the Canadian government to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II and claimed to be a Federal Security Service agent.
The Times, citing an unidentified source, said Serykh had suffered from psychological problems.
The Guardian newspaper cited a source close to the British investigation as saying that Serykh was believed to be a former "member of the Russian security services."
Former Russian intelligence officers are routinely denied asylum abroad.
A Federal Security Service spokesman said he could not comment about the incident Tuesday.
According to the BBC, the family had been granted asylum in Canada but was forced to leave after a dispute with local authorities. The BBC provided no details about the dispute.
The family moved to Britain in 2007 and immediately filed for asylum, which was recently denied, the BBC said.
The Russian Consulate in Edinburgh said it was trying to confirm the nationality of the victims Tuesday.
"In similar cases, the local police always inform us, but this time we haven't been told anything," consulate spokesman Timofei Kunitsky said by telephone from Edinburgh.
"We have seen the press reports saying that they were Russian, and now an assigned diplomat in Glasgow is trying to communicate with the local police over the case," he said.
A spokesman for Britain's Home Office said the lack of information was normal procedure in such cases. "The names of the victims and other details can be reported only after their family has been informed," the spokesman said by telephone.
Glasgow police also declined to comment, citing a similar reason.
Simon Hodgeson, a spokesman for the Scottish Refugee Council, which media reports said the family had turned to for help, declined to comment until after the Home Office released an official statement.
But Hodgeson said it was unusual that information about the family had not been released yet. "I'm surprised that it is taking so long to identify them," he said.
He also said that as soon as an asylum seeker receives an official rejection, he or she stops receiving state support and cannot get a work permit.
British media reports said the family members tied their hands together with rope or were holding hands when they jumped.
Russia is ranked in fifth place, right after China, in terms of citizens seeking asylum in other countries, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Its most recent report says that 8,507 Russians — many of them from Chechnya and other restive North Caucasus republics — were waiting for decisions on asylum applications in June 2009.
Britain's Home Office was considering a total of 2,470 asylum requests in late December.
Among the best-known Russians who have received British asylum are former Kremlin powerbroker Boris Berezovsky and Chechen separatist envoy Akhmed Zakayev, both of whom are wanted on criminal charges in Russia.