Russian entrepreneur Nikolai Glushkov, found dead in his London apartment in March 2018, was strangled with a dog collar so that the murder would turn out to be a suicide.
The British media wrote it, citing the outcome of the findings of the coroner of a British court that is investigating the matter.
The oligarch was considered a critic of Vladimir Putin.
The proceedings have been underway since March 2018, when Glushkov, 69, was found lifeless.
Glushkov fled Russia after being accused of fraud at the time he was deputy director of Aeroflot and was granted political refugee status in the UK in 2010. In 2017, after a trial in absentia, he was sentenced to eight years in prison by a Russian court. Glushkov was friends with Boris Berezovsky, found dead in 2013, and along with Alexander Litvinenko - killed with radioactive tea - he was considered one of the leading figures in the London-based opposition to Putin. His death occurred a week after former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia were poisoned with Novichok in Salisbury.