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Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

PostPosted: Thu Jan 23, 2020 10:30 pm
by JackRiddler
.

Ghislaine Maxwell... oh, wait, too soon?

Bad taste? Sorry.

.

Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

PostPosted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 2:47 am
by norton ash
JackRiddler » Thu Jan 23, 2020 9:30 pm wrote:.

Ghislaine Maxwell... oh, wait, too soon?

Bad taste? Sorry.

.


In a luxury car near the Pont de L'Alma. That would be in exquisite taste.

Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

PostPosted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 7:16 am
by RocketMan
Perhaps hanging by one leg off Friar's Bridge... With a tarot card up her sleeve.

Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

PostPosted: Sun Mar 15, 2020 12:02 am
by cptmarginal
Federal Prosecutor Kills His Wife in Apparent Murder-Suicide, California Authorities Say

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS MARCH 10, 2020

(GRANITE BAY, Calif.) — A federal prosecutor in California fatally shot his wife before killing himself Sunday in their home, authorities said.

Timothy Delgado, 43, was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California. He shot his 45-year-old wife Tamara Delgado in a murder-suicide in Granite Bay, according to a Placer County Sheriff’s Office statement.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento said Monday it is cooperating with the investigation and referred questions to the sheriff’s office. Delgado appears to have prosecuted narcotics and firearms cases, a search of the office’s website shows.

Tamara Delgado’s mother called the sheriff’s office to check on the couple, bringing deputies to their home, according to spokeswoman Angela Musallam. She would not say if there had been other calls to the residence or provide further information.

Granite Bay is about 30 miles (48. kilometers) northeast of Sacramento.

Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

PostPosted: Sun Mar 15, 2020 12:08 am
by cptmarginal
Prison whistleblower who exposed unsafe conditions in Arizona facility found dead

Police in Arizona said her death is being treated as a suicide.

By Christina Carrega
March 11, 2020

An Arizona correctional sergeant who blew the whistle on corruption and unsafe conditions inside a jail facility was found dead in an apparent suicide, officials confirmed to ABC News.

Gabriela Contreras risked her position at the former Lewis Corrections Department in Buckeye last April when she leaked surveillance videos that revealed multiple jail units had cell doors that did not lock properly.

Contreras initially turned over the videos and altered documentation regarding the broken locks anonymously, but came forward in an exclusive interview with ABC15 a month later.

The whistleblower was suspended for a week when she was caught downloading the videos.

"I had enough," Contreras said during the May 2019 interview when asked why she downloaded and leaked the footage. "Because it’s a crime, what they were doing: allowing this to happen, allowing staff to get hurt, and not doing anything about it."

Contreras also wrote to Gov. Doug Ducey on May 15, 2019 after his office launched an investigation. The jail staffers were asked by the governor's office to make comprehensive reports about each broken cell door, but were forced to make modifications to those documents by their superior.

"The deputy warden was outraged that we reported all of the deficiencies we found," Contreras wrote. "He told us that we were only to count the cell doors that opened on their own when the padlock was removed -- and that we should not have included cell doors that opened with a slight juggle or push or be caused to register an Unauthorized Access alert on the computer on this report."

Contreras warned the governor that the deputy warden was trying to minimize or "present his office with false and/or misleading information and falsifying public records," she wrote.

Because of Contreras' fight, over 1,000 cell doors were repaired and replaced, the prison took on new leadership and was renamed the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry.

During the late evening of March 8, Goodyear Police Department responded to a "domestic disturbance" call at Contreras' home. When the officers entered her residence, Contreras was in her bedroom "unresponsive, with an apparent self-inflicted gun-shot wound," according to a spokeswoman with the police department.

Despite "lifesaving measures" taken, Contreras was pronounced dead at the scene.

"The Goodyear Police Department considers this a suicide and next of kin has been notified," the spokeswoman said.

The Maricopa County's Medical Examiner's office ruled Contreras' manner of death as a suicide caused by a "gunshot wound of head," according to online records.

"Our beloved friend Gabriela Contreras was taken too soon ... a loving and caring mother, daughter, and friend. A passionate person who was not afraid to stand for what she believed in," wrote a family friend on an online funeral fundraiser page.

Attempts to reach the family of Contreras were not successful on Wednesday.

Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

PostPosted: Sun Mar 29, 2020 2:03 pm
by semper occultus
German state finance minister Thomas Schäfer found dead

Police suspect Thomas Schäfer died by suicide after his body was found on train tracks near Wiesbaden. He was the finance minister for the state of Hesse, where Germany's financial center Frankfurt lies.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-state-finance-minister-thomas-sch%C3%A4fer-found-dead/a-52948976?fbclid=IwAR210yleoAiJWcPAV7ikJof8DjdEalj1dKGwdrR4Eo7UV-wuL3U_L5yuQwk

The body of a man identified as Thomas Schäfer, the finance minister of the German state of Hesse, was found on a high-speed train line in the town of Hochheim between Frankfurt and Mainz, police confirmed Saturday.

The presence of a body on the tracks was first reported by witnesses to paramedics, who were unable to initially identify the remains due to the extent of the injuries.

Investigators said an investigation on the scene confirmed the identity of the man as Schäfer and that the death was likely a suicide. Police did not immediately release further details of the case.

The politician apparently left a note before taking his own life, German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported, citing sources close to the investigation. The note, according to the report, referenced Schäfer's reasons for taking the step.

According to media in the state of Hesse, the 54-year-old regularly appeared in public in recent days, for example, to inform the public about financial assistance during the coronavirus crisis.

Schäfer had "considerable worries" over COVID-19

Schäfer was a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats (CDU). He had been active in Hessian state politics for more than two decades and was finance minister for almost 10 years.

Germany's financial capital, Frankfurt, lies in Hesse and is the state's biggest city.

Schäfer had been widely expected to succeed state premier, Volker Bouffier, if he decided not to stand for re-election in 2023.

In a statement, Bouffier said that the state's leadership has received the news with "sadness and disbelief."

Bouffier also said that Schäfer had been living under considerable worry and stress because of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

"His main concern was whether he could manage to fulfill the huge expectations of the population, especially in terms of financial aid," Bouffier said on Sunday. "For him, there was clearly no way out. He was disappointed and so he had to leave us. That has shocked us, has shocked me."

"Our sincere condolences go to his closest relatives," he added.

Outgoing CDU chief Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said Schäfer's sudden death "shocked me, shocked all of us" in the party. "It has hit us and left us sad and stunned," she wrote on Twitter.

Image

Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

PostPosted: Mon Mar 30, 2020 1:00 am
by Elvis
Another death attributable to the ECB's "sound money" policies.

"His main concern was whether he could manage to fulfill the huge expectations of the population, especially in terms of financial aid,

Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:49 am
by cptmarginal
Belligerent Savant » Fri Jun 26, 2020 10:09 am wrote:.

In related news:

Hollywood and business mogul Steve Bing died by suicide following a yearslong battle with depression and financial woes after blowing much of his $600 million fortune, friends said.

Bing, 55, died after jumping from his 27th-floor apartment in LA’s Century City on Monday. He was a notable philanthropist and Hollywood investor...
While the Hollywood community remains shaken by his death, those close to Bing say his jet-set life was enviable on the surface — with close friendships with President Bill Clinton and billionaire Ron Burkle and relationships with a host of beautiful women — but in reality he was very troubled.

One friend, who asked not to be named, said, “Steve was the most charming, caring and generous guy you could ever meet. Yes, he liked beautiful women, but it never worked out. He has gone through a dark time for years. He talked about battling mental illness, bipolar disorder. His close friends are devastated about his death but, sadly, not surprised.”

https://pagesix.com/2020/06/23/steve-bi ... -struggle/



I keep telling anyone who'll listen that this Epstein business is a lot bigger than it appears, and that it was a turning point in the Secret War in Heaven. I don't think we're anywhere near the end of the aftershocks kicked up by the Epstein snuff, and I can't say with complete confidence that all of the insanity we've seen in the past six months isn't part of that process as well.

And then there's this Steve Bing business, that absolutely no one seems to believe the official story of.
...

And as you'd expect, Bing is yet another former friend of the Clintons who might've told tales out of school had the Feds ever leaned on him hard enough. In fact, Bing was part of Bill Clinton's inner-inner-circle, along with Jeffrey Epstein and supermarket heir Ron Burkle.


Image

https://secretsun.blogspot.com/2020/06/ ... -with.html


Caveat Lector, per usual.

Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:54 am
by cptmarginal
Bona Film Group Executive Dies by Apparent Suicide at 52

6/10/2020

Bona released a statement over social media saying that Huang Wei, a vice president at the company who oversaw its cinema division, had died, but provided no details.

Shock waves of sorrow ripped through the Chinese film industry Wednesday as news spread that Huang Wei, an influential and widely liked senior executive at Bona Film Group, leapt to his death from an 18th-floor window at the company's headquarters in central Beijing.

Bona released a statement over social media late Wednesday saying that Huang, a vice president at the company who oversaw its cinema division, had died at the age of 52. No other details were included.

Sources close to Bona tell The Hollywood Reporter that it is believed Huang jumped from an office window late Wednesday morning. The incident occurred at Bona's corporate headquarters in the U-Center Building, a mixed-use commercial building in Beijing's Chaoyang district.

Bona is among China's top tier of film and media companies. The company produced or co-produced three of China's 10 highest-grossing films of 2019, including The Captain ($410 million) and The Bravest ($237 million). The company also co-financed Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Huang joined Bona in 2009 from rival cinema circuit Stellar Cinemas. He was influential in Bona's growth as a movie theater operator. The company now has approximately 80 cinemas in China.

News of his death — and its suspected cause — circulated rapidly through the Beijing film business over social media.

Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2020 10:04 am
by cptmarginal
Billionaire Dmitry Bosov Dies From ‘Gunshot Wound’ At Home In Moscow

May 7, 2020

Image

Billionaire Dmitriy Bosov, 52, has been found dead at his apartment in Moscow according to reports from Russia.

The Investigative Committee of Russia, the country’s top federal investigating authority, has confirmed that the body of a man with a gunshot wound to the head was found by relatives in the territory of a household in the village of Usovo. A Glock 19 gen 4 pistol was found next to the man’s body. The Alltek Group, which Bosov founded, confirmed in a statement that Bosov has died.

The Alltek Group said in its statement that Bosov’s death is “a huge loss for everyone who knew him.” It describes him as “an outstanding businessman, a brave and determined innovator, a reliable partner, a sensitive and devoted friend.”

Investigators are looking into the cause of death, which may be a suicide.

Bosov was best known for ownership of the Sibanthracite Group, which united several coal producers in Siberia and formed the backbone of his estimated $1.1 billion net worth. The group claims to hold over 670 million tons of coal and anthracite reserves.

Dmitriy Bosov In Short
Forbes.ru, the website of Forbes licensee Forbes Russia, has chronicled the rise of Dmitriy Bosov. According to Forbes.ru, Bosov graduated in 1991 from the faculty of radio electronics and laser technology of Bauman Moscow State Technical University.

Alongside fellow students Dmitry Aga, Dmitry Shatokhin and Vladimir Mikulik, he started his first company the day after graduation, selling computers.

Early success came through “aluminum capital” after Bosov heard, through a friend in the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, that money could be made in loans for the supply of aluminum for state needs.

Later in his career he did business with a colorful cast of characters that dominated Russian industry through the 1990s. Through Krasnoyarsk aluminum smelter, now reportedly a part of billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s empire, Bosov went into business with U.K. citizens and brothers David and Simon Reuben, now billionaires with an estimated net worth of $7.1 billion each.

In 1992 investors agreed provide the Krasnoyarsk smelter with the raw alumina and pay, according to a news story on the Reuben brothers website, what is now known as a “tolling” fee, with the Reuben group taking on the ever-changing price, and obvious market risk.

By 2000 the relationship had soured. A civil war broke out. Sibneft’s Roman Abramovich and Boris Berezovsky unexpectedly bought shares in aluminum plants, causing confusion. Eventually Bosov and his partners were bought out by Abramovich and Berezovsky for $550 million.

A spokesperson for David and Simon Reuben told Forbes that they enjoyed a “very good working relationship with Mr Bosov from about 1994 to 1999. They are saddened to hear of his demise and offer his family and loved ones their sincere condolences.”

Recent Rise
Bosov hit the Forbes billionaires list for the first time this year through his stake in Sibanthracite, formed in 2001.

Forbes.ru reports that by the mid-2010s, Sibanthracite’s coal pit had accelerated its yield, growing to control over 21% of the Russian coal market, with production rising from 6 million tons of coking coal and hard coal in 2014 to 24 million tons of coal in 2018.


Sons Allege Foul Play in Death of Russian Coal Baron Mr Dmitry Bosov

Russian Oligarch Dmitry Bosov Buys $30 Million Beverly Hills Mansion - January 3, 2020

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Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2020 1:20 am
by Grizzly
^^ Interesting timing eh?

Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

PostPosted: Tue Aug 25, 2020 7:37 am
by cptmarginal
cptmarginal » Wed Feb 25, 2015 11:22 pm wrote:http://qz.com/349695/a-banished-member-of-kazakhstan-royalty-has-died-by-apparent-suicide/

(Embedded links in original)

A banished member of Kazakhstan royalty has died by apparent suicide

Written by Steve LeVine

February 24, 2015

Image

Kazakh royalty: Aliyev and Nazarbayeva. (Reuters/Shamil Zhumatov)

The estranged former son-in-law of Kazakhstan’s president has been found hanged in a Vienna jail cell, after an eight-year effort by the Central Asian government to bring him home to face murder and racketeering charges.

Rakhat Aliyev, 52, a trained surgeon who was once one of the oil state’s most unassailable forces, was found dead while awaiting trial on charges of murder. An Austrian official called the death a suicide; Aliyev’s lawyer said he doubted that his client would have killed himself.

The death brings a mysterious end to a long trail of allegations of torture, kidnapping, murder and coup attempts—all of which Aliyev vigorously denied. In long interviews I conducted with him from the late 1990s through the early 2000s, in Kazakhstan and Vienna, Aliyev portrayed himself as a democratically minded ally of the West who had ruffled the feathers of entrenched, self-interested opponents.

If so, his greatest enemy was Nursultan Nazarbayev, the leader of Kazakhstan since 1990. Aliyev was married to Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter, Dariga, until she divorced him in 2007.

[...]


Kazakhstan: Troubled Nazarbayev grandson dies aged 29 - Aug 17, 2020

Aisultan Nazarbayev, a grandson of Kazakhstan’s former president, has died in London after years of battling drug addiction.

The 29-year-old’s struggle to regain mental health had played out in acutely public fashion in recent years as he repeatedly took to social media to level increasingly outrageous allegations against his own family and other elite figures.

Throughout his troubles, however, Aisultan maintained fast loyalty to his grandfather, Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Aisultan’s death was confirmed by his mother Dariga Nazarbayeva late on August 16, hours after local media reported the news, with one outlet citing heart failure as the cause of death.

In a post on Facebook, Nazarbayeva, who has made few public appearances since her abrupt dismissal as chair of the Senate in May, requested privacy for her family while it mourned the loss of “our beloved Aisultan.”

Aisultan had once been tipped for great things. He graduated from Britain’s prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 2010 and was entrusted with a post in the Defense Ministry by the time he was in his early 20s.

In 2013, he married Alima Boranbayeva, whose father, Kairat Boranbayev, is a prominent businessman and the chairman of one of Kazakhstan’s most successful football clubs. U.S. rapper Kanye West was reported to have commanded a multi-million dollar fee to perform at the party.

Although the Nazarbayev family is shielded by draconian laws from prying journalists, the domestic trauma could not be evaded.

In 2015, Aisultan’s one-time high-flying father, Rakhat Aliyev, who had had an acrimonious falling-out with President Nazarbayev, died of apparent suicide in an Austrian jail.

An older Aliyev son, Nurali, 35, took over the reins of their father’s considerable business interests and has since become a serious player in the banking sector.

Aisultan, however, appears around this time to have turned away from the regime that nurtured him.

In the year after Aliyev’s death, Aisultan took to Facebook to blast what he called the “medieval mentality” of Kazakhstan’s elite. In the same message he accused several of his grandfather’s top associates of plotting and scheming.

Aisultan explained that his newfound interest in domestic politics had been triggered by the recent birth of his daughter.

“There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about the Kazakhstan that my daughter is growing up in, where her friends are growing up, where her future husband is growing up,” he wrote.

This message was published after a failed bid to be appointed president of the national soccer federation, a post once occupied by his father.

The sport was a driving passion for Aisultan. He represented Kazakhstan at Under-17 level and spent six months with England’s Portsmouth football club in 2007, when it was still in the English Premier League.

In late 2017 Aisultan admitted he had become addicted to drugs.

In a Facebook post he described how he had developed the habit after failing to come to terms with the “double blow” of his father’s death and the subsequent death of his paternal grandfather.

Nazarbayev, who stepped down as president in 2019, had become a “spiritual father” and helped him overcome addiction, Aisultan wrote, shortly before disappearing from sight for more than a year.

When he returned, matters became worse, as he emerged anew to claim he had been forcibly confined to a “private Russian jail” – a statement widely interpreted to mean he had done another stint in rehab.

From there, his public utterances grew ever more erratic.

He reserved his harshest invective for his mother whom he hinted was plotting to assassinate him.

Tales of alleged insider intrigue were mingled in Aisultan’s Facebook rants, which he latterly published under the amended name of Aisultan Jesus Rakhat, with bizarre public claims about his family.

Some media outlets gleefully ran interviews with the plainly troubled young man in which, among other things, he alleged that Nursultan Nazarbayev was actually his father and that Dariga Nazarbayeva was not his mother.

Beyond the confines of Kazakhstan, Aisultan was required to face legal consequences for his unbridled conduct.

In October 2019, Aisultan was handed a suspended 18-month prison sentence by a London court for biting a policeman’s hand during a drug-fueled frenzy.

In a further embarrassing blow for a government chronically uncomfortable with bad PR, Aisultan in February declared that he had applied for asylum in the United Kingdom.

That authorities allowed local media to report on these developments was surprising, given the extent to which Nazarbayev family privacy is guarded.

[...]


search.php?keywords=Nazarbayev

Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2020 10:39 pm
by cptmarginal
Senior U.S. Intelligence Official Died by Suicide in June

Anthony Schinella, the National Intelligence Officer for Military Issues and a longtime CIA official, killed himself at his home.

Matthew Cole, James Risen
August 26 2020

Image

Anthony Schinella, the National Intelligence Officer for Military Issues, testifying at a House Armed Services Committee meeting on June 21, 2018. Video still: U.S. House Armed Services Committee


ONE OF THE nation’s highest-ranking intelligence officials died by suicide at his home in the Washington, D.C., area in June, but the U.S. intelligence community has remained publicly silent about the incident even as the Central Intelligence Agency has conducted a secret investigation of his death.

Anthony Schinella, 52, the National Intelligence Officer for Military Issues, shot himself on June 14 in the front yard of his Arlington home. A Virginia medical examiner’s report lists Schinella’s cause of death as suicide from a gunshot wound to the head. His wife, who had just married him weeks earlier, told The Intercept that she was in her car in the driveway, trying to get away from Schinella when she witnessed his suicide. At the time of his suicide, Schinella was weeks away from retirement.

Soon after his death, an FBI liaison to the CIA entered Schinella’s house and removed his passports, his secure phone, and searched through his belongings, according to his wife, Sara Corcoran, a Washington journalist. A CIA spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

As NIO for Military Issues, Schinella was the highest-ranking military affairs analyst in the U.S. intelligence community, and was also a member of the powerful National Intelligence Council, which is responsible for producing the intelligence community’s most important analytical reports that go to the president and other top policymakers.

The National Intelligence Council is now under the control of the Director of National Intelligence, and has recently gained greater public prominence as its analytical work has been caught up in political controversies surrounding the Trump administration, including this summer’s public firestorm over intelligence reports about Russian bounties to kill American troops.

On June 26, the New York Times reported that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan, and President Donald Trump quickly faced criticism for having failed to do anything in response to protect American troops. Within days, the National Intelligence Council produced a memo that claimed that the intelligence about the bounties wasn’t conclusive. While the memo was not made public, it was quickly picked up in the press and seemed designed to placate Trump by raising doubts about the original news story about the Russian bounties. The NIC memo appears to have been generated at the urging of John Ratcliffe, the former Republican Texas congressman and Trump supporter who became director of national intelligence in May.

But at the time that the memo became public through press reports, there was no mention of the fact that the National Intelligence Officer for Military Issues — the one member of the NIC who should have had the most input into the analysis concerning military operations in Afghanistan — had killed himself just days earlier. In fact, Schinella was considered an expert on the Taliban and its military capabilities. Though he was an analyst, Schinella had deployed to four different war zones during his career, his wife said.

A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a graduate degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Schinella had spent much of his career in the CIA before joining the National Intelligence Council. In 2019, the Brookings Institute, a Washington think tank, published a book by Schinella entitled “Bombs Without Boots,” a study of the limits of the uses of air power in modern war.

Tim Kilbourn, a friend and former colleague of Schinella, described him in an interview as an “American patriot,” and said that his end was a “tragedy,” but declined to comment further. The Arlington County, Va. police report on the incident was not immediately available.

Ashley Savage, a spokesperson for the Arlington County Police Department, said the department’s investigation of the Schinella case remains open. She said the Arlington police notified the CIA about Schinella’s death, and that the Arlington police provided assistance to the CIA. “We will defer any questions related to the CIA investigation to their agency,” she added.

After his death, Schinella’s wife discovered a large collection of bondage and S&M gear that had been hidden in his house, along with 24 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition. His wife said that one of Schinella’s CIA colleagues contacted her recently and said the CIA has completed an investigation into Schinella’s death, but didn’t provide her with any details.

Schinella had two children from a previous marriage.

Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

PostPosted: Mon Sep 07, 2020 10:01 am
by cptmarginal
Until two years ago Guo was the No. 2 man at China’s HNA Group, which was staring at bankruptcy. Moreover, there were, in New York Times-speak, “deepened uncertainties surrounding the debt-laden Chinese conglomerate’s restructuring.

It looks like Bannon’s buddy got out just in time.

That’s because Guo’s boss, the chairman of HNA, recently snapped the most expensive selfie ever taken while vacationing in the South of France. Police said he was leaning way out over an embankment to get a good shot of himself when he took a 50-foot plunge to the picturesque base of this picturesque hilltop village



Wang Jian, Co-Founder of Chinese Giant HNA, Dies in France

Image

Wang Jian, center, the co-chairman and a co-founder of HNA Group of China, at an event in New York in 2017.CreditKrista Schlueter for The New York Times


July 4, 2018

The co-chairman and co-founder of HNA Group, a Chinese conglomerate that spent heavily in recent years to build a global profile but has since grappled with high debt, died from an accidental fall in France, the company said on Wednesday.

Wang Jian, 57, was on a business trip in Provence but had taken a detour on Tuesday to go sightseeing when the fall happened, according to HNA and the French police. The police said they were treating his death as a likely accident.

Mr. Wang was visiting Bonnieux, a traditional village with a church atop a rocky outcropping, when the fall occurred on Tuesday morning.

“He wanted to have his picture taken by someone in his group,” Col. Hubert Mériaux, of the Vaucluse gendarmerie force, said in a telephone interview. As he climbed onto a low wall with a view of the local landscape “he fell backwards, 10 to 15 meters further below,” Col. Mériaux said.

Col. Mériaux said an investigation into the death was still ongoing but that the police had no immediate suspicions of foul play.

Mr. Wang was with HNA employees at the time of his death, said Israel Hernandez, a spokesman for HNA who had accompanied Mr. Wang on his trip to France. “They were unable to grab him,” Mr. Hernandez said.

Chen Feng, HNA’s other co-chairman, Adam Tan, its chief executive, and Mr. Wang’s family were en route to France. The Chinese website of Hainan Airlines, one of HNA’s main businesses, was rendered gray instead of its usual reddish color scheme in honor of Mr. Wang’s death.
Mr. Wang’s death comes as the company continues to try to get a handle on its finances.

HNA spent tens of billions of dollars in recent years buying up financial firms, hotels, real estate and other investments around the world. It also bought Ingram Micro, an American technology distributor, two years ago for $6 billion, and it took big stakes in major companies like Hilton Hotels and Deutsche Bank.

Mr. Wang played a key role in the company’s rise from a regional, state-controlled company to a vast conglomerate. His brother, Wang Wei, also played a major role, although much of his work was behind the scenes.

But the company’s spending spree left it $90 billion in debt at a difficult time. Last year, Chinese officials began casting a skeptical eye on Chinese companies that were buying billions in global assets with marquee names but little strategic value. In China, HNA was commonly lumped in with companies that the official news media called gray rhinos — large and visible problems that nevertheless go unnoticed until they begin moving too fast to stop.

Though the company has since struck deals to sell billions of dollars worth of assets, it is still showing signs of financial strain. Just this week, an Australian company said its proposed sale of its refrigerated logistics business to HNA fell through in part because of the Chinese company’s cash problems.

HNA has also contended with questions over who controls the company. Last year it said its largest shareholder, a mysterious businessman named Guan Jun, transferred his stake to a charitable trust. Regulators in the United States, Switzerland, Germany and New Zealand have asked HNA for more clarity.

Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2020 9:24 am
by Harvey
Tributes pour onto to twitter for American journalist Andre Vltchek who has died in 'suspicious' circumstances in Turkey. I admit, I don't know much of his work. https://twitter.com/search?q=Andre%20Vltchek

https://twitter.com/AndreVltchek

https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/american-journalist-found-dead-in-istanbul-158483

Andre-Vltchek-Foto-Paul-S.-Graham.png


American journalist found dead in Istanbul

A Russian-born American documentary film maker and investigate journalist has been found dead in a car in Istanbul’s Karaköy neighborhood.

The 57-year old journalist Andre Vltchek and his wife, Indira Vltchek, rented a car to travel to Istanbul from the Black Sea province of Samsun, where the Vltcheks spent some days.

Two drivers also accompanied them during the trip.

When they arrived at a hotel in Karaköy at 5:30 a:m, where the couple was planning to stay, Indira Vltchek tried to wake him up. But the journalist did not respond.

His wife and the drivers called the emergency services for help.

The medical team, which arrived at the scene, pronounced Andre Vltchek dead. The police sealed off the street where the incident occurred while a crime scene investigation team searched the area.

The police recorded the case as “suspicious death” and launched an investigation into the demise of the American journalist.

The car was towed to a parking lot of the police station for further investigation and his body was moved to a forensic morgue.

The wife and the two drivers are expected to give their statements regarding the incident.



https://apnews.com/ce4b80f6e83a1d439832a3df0c8fc8e6

Turkey probes death of American journalist Andre Vltchek

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish authorities are investigating the death of an American author and journalist who died while traveling overnight from the Turkish Black Sea coastal city of Samsun to Istanbul, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported Tuesday.

Andre Vltchek, 57, and his wife were traveling inside a rented and chauffeured car and arrived in front of their Istanbul hotel at around 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday. His wife tried to wake him up to tell him they had arrived but could not do so, the Anadolu Agency reported.

Medical teams called to the scene declared him to be dead, the agency said.

The Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office immediately launched an investigation into the death, while his body was taken to a forensic medicine institution to be examined, Anadolu reported.

The private DHA news agency said police recorded his case as a “suspicious death.”

On his website, Vltchek described himself as a novelist, philosopher, filmmaker and investigative journalist as well as a “revolutionary, internationalist and globetrotter who fights against Western Imperialism and the Western regime imposed on the world.”

He covered dozens of war zones and conflicts, including in Iraq, Sri Lanka, Bosnia, Rwanda and Syria, according to his website.

Vltchek authored numerous books, including “On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare” with linguist and scholar Noam Chomsky.