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Have Russia’s poison assassins struck in Surrey?

The Daily Mail

Surrounded by high walls, with closed circuit TV cameras monitoring all entrances and guards constantly on patrol, the electronically gated enclave of St George’s Hill in Surrey has long attracted the rich and famous.

Dubbed Britain’s Beverly Hills, the exclusive area has been home to stars such as Sir Cliff Richard, Kate Winslet and Ringo Starr, as well as footballers including Frank Lampard and the motor-racing driver Jenson Button.

It is billed as the perfect spot for ‘high achievers looking for a secure and private location’ and the smallest properties cost £6 million on the 964-acre estate — which has a golf course, tennis courts, swimming pool, spa and restaurant.

But such exclusive delights are no longer of interest to one resident. Alexander Perepilichny, 44, who rented a luxury property on the estate for £12,500 a month, was found dead three weeks ago in the strangest of circumstances outside his home inside this gated community.

A fit, energetic businessman with no history of medical problems, he had, it seems, simply dropped dead in the one-acre grounds of his seven-bedroom home. Yet exactly how he died remains shrouded in mystery.
His body was discovered soon after 5pm on a Saturday by a member of his staff. He had last been seen out jogging that morning. He was still in his running gear when he was found.

‘The death is being treated as unexplained,’ a police spokesman said. ‘A post-mortem examination was carried out, which was inconclusive. Further tests are being carried out.’

And there is nothing routine about these further tests — forensic experts are searching for traces of poison. Amid growing fears among associates that this wealthy individual was the victim of a sophisticated professional assassin, forensic experts are working to identify any lethal substance in the dead man’s organs or bloodstream.

The extra tests were ordered — following a routine autopsy — after Surrey police were informed that the dead man had fled from Russia to Britain three years ago and had turned supergrass against members of a feared Russian crime syndicate.

Yesterday, it emerged that Perepilichny had been warned via a Russian police official that his name was on a hit list discovered in the possession of a known Chechen hitman in Russia, who had details of his former addresses.