British police found no signs of violence in the death of self-exiled Russian tycoon and former powerbroker Boris Berezovsky, an official police statement said.
Nothing suspicious was found in Berezovsky's home in the village of Ascot in Berkshire county, where the body of the 67-year-old tycoon was discovered by his security guard on Saturday afternoon, Superintendent Simon Bowden from Thames Valley Police told BBC's Russian Service late Sunday.
The official police statement comes amid claims by Nikolai Glushkov, one of Berezovsky's oldest friends and a former deputy director of Aeroflot, that a scarf was found near Berezovsky's body and that he may have been strangled, the Guardian reported Sunday.
"Either he did it himself or with the help of someone else," Glushkov said.
Berezovsky's body was found by a bodyguard who had to break open the bathroom door, which had been locked from the inside, police said in the statement.
Police also said they found no traces of poisonous chemicals, or biological or radioactive substances at the scene.
Some sources have said that Berezovsky had been suffering from depression recently, apparently because of financial problems and a separation with his civil wife.
Berezovsky was best known for helping President Vladimir Putin attain power, though he later broke with the president and went to live in London in 2000, where he received political asylum in 2003.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Saturday that Berezovsky had written a letter to the president two months ago asking him for forgiveness and help in returning to Russia.
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