The ex-wife of a Russian tycoon who was jailed for organising contract killings has been found dead in her London home, reports the Metro.

Irina Izmestieva, also known as Irina Ford, was discovered on the sofa of her £10million flat in Kensington.

Her husband Igor, a former senator who represented the oil-rich republic Bashkortostan, was sentenced to life in a high-security Russian prison 13 years ago. Apparently Vladimir Putin had promised he would pardon and free him, but hasn’t done so yet.

Ms Izmestieva’s sudden death has prompted calls for MI5 to investigate, following several suspicious attacks on Russians in the UK over the years. London-based Russian businessman Evgeny Chichvarkin said Irina had been ‘an active participant in a property dispute’, and added:

I very much hope the UK’s special services will investigate this case properly, thoroughly, and, perhaps, one day we’ll learn what happened.

The mother-of-two and former filmmaker, once pictured at a 2012 event with Prince Harry, had been ‘coughing, taking antibiotics and had not felt well for a few days’ before her death.

But she did not have Covid, according to her friend Miranda Mirianashvili, 49, who said:

Friends found her sleeping on the couch at their home in London. That is, they found her no longer alive.

I suppose MI5 could investigate, but would they be able to do anything with the findings? I’m paranoid enough to think a Russian hitman is going to sneak into my flat and murder me in my sleep if I say the wrong thing so I don’t want to say anything is afoot here, but if something were to be afoot, why is it so easy for these Russian contract killers to just pop over to the UK and poison/kill anyone they want? Are they just that good at it (hypothetically speaking)? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t count on us getting any answers as to the case of Irina Izmestieva anytime soon. RIP.

For the wild story of a woman whose step mum accidentally hired a hitman to kill her dad, click HERE.