By Fawaz Adebisi
The Russia’s Investigative Committee has confirmed that Wagner chief , Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in a plane crash that occured last Wednesday.
The committee revealed this in a statement on Sunday, revealing that after conducting forensic test, all 10 bodies recovered at the site of the crash were identified, and their identities “conform to the manifest.”
Recall that Russia’s aviation agency had earlier published the names of all 10 people on the private jet, which crashed in the Tver region northwest of Moscow.
They included Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin, his right-hand man who helped found the Wagner group.
“As part of the investigation of the plane crash in the Tver region, molecular-genetic examinations have been completed,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement on its site on the Telegram messaging app.
“According to their results, the identities of all 10 dead were established. They correspond to the list stated in the flight sheet,” it added.
The private jet crashed exactly two months after Prigozhin’s failed attempt to lead a rebellion against the top military leaders of Russia.
President Vladimir Putin described that mutiny as a treacherous “stab in the back”, but later met with Prigozhin in the Kremlin.
He however sent his condolences on Thursday to the families of those the aviation agency said had died in the crash.
The investigation report comes amid speculations that the mercenary chief was murdered on the instruction of the Kremlin.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesman of President Vladimir Putin has dismissed the speculation.
