The mistress of a Russian whistleblower has described how he was nervous, shaking and acting like it was his “last days of life” before he collapsed and died outside his Surrey mansion.
Elmira Medynska had spent two days in Paris with Alexander Perepilichnyy and on the night before his death she described how he had become sick after sending some of his food back at the Buddha Bar.
He left her the next morning to return to the home he shared with his wife and children and collapsed while jogging later that day.
The former model was contacted by someone claiming that they worked in a hospital and saying he had been in a car accident, but only found out about his death months later by Googling his name.
After she was contacted by Surrey Police months later, she received an email telling her that she would “die soon”.
She has given evidence to French police during an eight hour interview, but has never been questioned by the British authorities, who concluded that there was no third party involvement in his death.
The couple had met on a dating site in March 2012 and he visited her in Ukraine in May, then took her on all-expenses paid trips to Nice for three days in July or August and then to Paris for two days on November 8 2012.
“He made a very good impression on me,” she told the Old Bailey by video link from Paris, where she now lives. “He was a nice, well-educated man. He was in very good mood and good health and good shape.”
But she said at the same time he was very “secretive”, emailing her from an address in a fake name Sergei Kavalov and not telling her what he did for his business.
She remembered when they were in Nice he took a call over lunch and was “very nervous” and “screaming” at someone on the other end of the line. But it was in Paris that she really noticed a change in his behaviour.
The couple checked in to the five star Hotel Le Bristol, where rooms cost around £1,000 a night, before heading out to George V for lunch where Mr Perepilichnyy, 44, seemed “stressed” and “nervous” and was “shaking” so much that he spilt his red wine on himself.
“I think he was worried about his work or business”, Miss Medynska said. “I did not ask him questions”.
She added: “He was a little bit somewhere not with me. He was in his thoughts maybe. It was not very nice.”
The next day he took her shopping, where he bought her a Prada bag and a pair of Louboutins, but he was so distracted he bought them in the wrong size, she said.
“He was not really looking at me, he was looking at his telephone, so I was upset because he was not paying me enough attention,” she told the inquest.
That evening they went to the Buddha Bar, where insisted on taking the seat so he could see the restaurant, leaving her on the less comfortable chair.
“He was looking for people around,” she said. “He was a little bit stressed.”
He ordered a number of dishes, including sushi rolls and tempura, but he sent the fried dish back as he “said that the taste is bad”.
It emerged that he had actually made bookings at three other restaurants before taking her to the Buddha Bar.
When they returned to their hotel he locked himself in the bathroom for roughly an hour and it sounded like he was vomiting, she said, but when he came out he said he did not need to see a doctor.
Lucas Fear-Segal, acting for Legal and General with whom Mr Perepilichnyy had a substantial insurance policy, pointed out that she told French police that she “did not have a good feeling” about their trip to Paris as a friend had died recently and before his death he had “acted as if it was the last days of his life and you had the same feeling about Alexander”.
When they parted ways at the airport he was in “good shape” and told her that he would take her to Switzerland, which unbeknownst to her was where he had passed information to prosecutors which implicated senior Russian police officers and state officials in a tax fraud.
Later that day he collapsed and died while out jogging near his £3m home in Weybridge, Surrey.
At the time of his death he had been helping specialist investment firm Hermitage Capital Management uncover a 230 million US dollar (£150 million) Russian money-laundering operation.
A compound similar to gelsemium, a rare plant known as "heartbreak grass" which is used by assassins, was found in his stomach contents but tests on the substance proved inconclusive.
She never heard from his again, but received four phone calls telling her he had been in an accident and asking her who she was to Mr Perepilichnyy and leaving her “shocked and afraid”.
He did not return her messages and she did not know that he had died until New Year’s Eve when she searched for his names and articles about his death came up.
“Things scared me,” she said. “I didn’t know he had a wife and children.”
She said that she is now “afraid to go to Russia” in case people thought she was in the mafia and thought she was being watched and refused to talk to new people.
Two months after his death she was contacted by police and after that she received emails from his account, one insulting her and the other telling her that she would “die soon from aids” from his email account.
Peter Skelton QC, counsel to the inquest, asked: “Do you think that the message came from Mr Perepilichnyy’s wife?”
Miss Medynska replied: “Maybe.” The case continues.
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