Medical examiner says former Putin aide found dead in Washington died of blunt force trauma

Mikhail Lesin, right.
(Image credit: AFP/Getty Images)

On Thursday, the D.C. medical examiner's office said a former aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin who was found dead in a hotel room last November didn't die from a heart attack, as his family believed, but rather from blunt force trauma to the head.

Mikhail Lesin, 59, was discovered in a Dupont Circle hotel room on Nov. 5, The Washington Post reports, and it's unclear why he was in Washington at the time. Lesin, who once served as a press minister and was the executive of GazpromMedia, also had injuries to his neck, torso, and upper and lower extremities, the medical examiner said in a statement. The examiner did not say if they were able to determine if the injuries were the result of an accident, crime, or something else.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.