Death of four Russians in Albania remains perplexing

There is still no clarity on the tragic end of four Russian citizens in Albania, three weeks after they were found without signs of life in the premises of a hotel in Qerret (Kavaja) on 15 October.It still remains a tragic mysterious ending, while there is much speculation if this was a sophisticated murder by the Russian authorities, as one of the victims was a former Russian military officer.

Albanian professor of Criminology, Ervin Karamuco, has indirectly raised the hypothesis that the Russian state can be involved in these deaths. “It indicates in murdering because of the background of one of the victims,” Karamuco said to Top Channel.

“I can not say it’s a murder by the state, but I can say that it is a very suspicious death. We will see what our labs will show, which in a sense are too modest. They can find the cause, but will not find the spectrum of the factor that led to this major disorder with disruption of vital functions and the instant death of 4 people,” he said.

He believes that undetectable vectors may have been used, though not necessarily in the hotel. They could have also been used earlier.

Otherwise, after the tourists had arrived at the hotel, they set off to relax in the sauna premises. They had ordered drinks, but when the waiter showed up for the service, they were without signs of life.

Natalya Burenkova (58), Sergey Burenkov (60), Nikita Belousov (37) and Ekaterina Burenkova (31) were all from the same family.

According to the Police report, the death of these persons occurred as a result of asphyxiation by high doses of chlorine in the sauna.

However, what makes this event suspicious is its designation as “murder” by the investigative team. Unofficial sources have indicated that the dead bodies were not found in the sauna, but rather in an indoor pool of the hotel, where there was not enough vapours to cause suffocation of 4 persons simultaneously.

Suspicions of murder have increased following the disclosure of Sergei Burenkov (one of the victims) background. He was an ex-general of the Russian army.

Apart from the reactions from experts, there were also reactions from the victims’ friends. Anastasia, Sergei Burenkov’s friend, spoke for the Russian media “Kuryer Sreda”. “We worked together. I’m shocked. Something happened to them, I’m sure they could not drown or be poisoned simultaneously. Someone would have moved or fallen, but they were all sitting in their positions. Nonsense things are being written, we probably will never understand how they died,” she said.

This event is not yet a finished story, the secret hand has not yet been revealed.

Mysterious deaths of important Russian citizens, outside Russia, have also happened before, such as the case that happened in 2018, in the UK, in the Salisbury Novichok attack.