Staff Writer

A prominent St. Petersburg businessman and former bodyguard to President Vladimir Putin, died in suspicious circumstances in the city's Sverdlov Hospital on Friday.

Roman Tsepov, 42, director of elite bodyguard agency Baltic-Escort, was admitted to the hospital a fortnight earlier with symptoms of severe food poisoning, which daily became worse.

Doctors were unable to prevent the poison from affecting bone marrow and producing symptoms of radiation sickness, which ultimately led to Tsepov's death. The businessman was due to be moved to a clinic in Germany for further treatment Saturday, but it was too late.

He was buried Monday in the city's Serafimovskoye cemetery.

What the poison was and how it was administered to Tsepov are unknown and have become the subjects of speculation.

Some media sources reported Tsepov was poisoned by a giant dose of a medical drug typically used to treat leukemia and some other forms of cancer - which the businessman didn't suffer from - while other publications suggest he was intoxicated by an experimental poison, containing huge quantities of heavy metals.

No official statements about he origin of the toxic agent have yet been available from the city prosecutor's office.

Yelena Ordynskaya, spokeswoman for the City Prosecutor's Office, said investigators are trying to identify the poison.

"Forensic experts are carrying out a series of tests to establish the origins of the poison," Ordynskaya said Monday. "The prosecutor's office is investigating the death as a case of premeditated murder, which is Article 105 (part one) of the Criminal Code."

The investigation is also trying to establish when Tsepov was infected with the poison. It has been suggested that the businessman could have ingested the poison in a powder or liquid form while eating a meal. Local Internet newspaper Fontanka.ru reported the investigators already have a full record of Tsepov's movements on Sept. 10 and 11.

Tsepov was born in St. Petersburg in 1962. After graduating from the Supreme Military Commander School of the Russian Interior Ministry, he served with the interior troops.

In the early 1990s, Tsepov launched his first security business. By the mid-1990s he was running a security firm that provided bodyguard services to then mayor Anatoly Sobchak and key members of his administration, including Putin, who was then a deputy to Sobchak.

Tsepov's bodyguards were frequently hired to protect Russian and foreign showbiz stars visiting St. Petersburg, including pop singer Alla Pugachyova and fashion designer Pierre Cardin.

Tsepov's agency provided security services to prime-time local TV news program "600 seconds" and its anchor Alexander Nevzorov, who was Tsepov's close friend.

"I can't believe that Tsepov could have died of natural, I mean, non-criminal causes," Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted Nevzorov as saying. "I know that he was surrounded not only by friends but by enemies. Tsepov was a recognized 'king of the shadows,' but he was not a criminal gang boss. He was on the side of justice."

"As for his murder ... if there is a desire to kill and enough money available, it is not very complicated to arrange," he said. St. Petersburg's Agency of Investigative Journalism said it wasn't unusual for Tsepov to guard criminal bosses.

"I would guard the devil himself, provided he is an honest devil," was one of Tsepov's most frequent sayings, the agency reported.

Such an attitude clearly brought him some problems. Tsepov survived three assassination attempts in 1993, 1995 and 1996.

"Paid articles intended to discredit Tsepov were regularly published," Fontanka.ru reported. "The most recent one appeared in a Moscow publication as recently as last week."

Andrei Konstantinov, head of the Agency for Journalistic Investigations, knew Tsepov and devoted one chapters of his blockbuster book "Banditsky Petersburg" to him.

The book was made into a highly acclaimed TV series and Tsepov appeared in one scene as a gangland boss.

Konstantinov described Tsepov as a powerful person with a strong personality. He had a lot of powerful friends but also many enemies who could be behind his death.

To give an idea of how dangerous Tsepov's work was, Fontanka.ru reported that in the 1990s his firm often provided private escorts to road convoys of freight and re-exported foreign cars along the route from Western Ukraine to Moscow and St. Petersburg. The latter route was branded "the road of death" because it was routinely raided by bandits.

In recent years, Tsepov tried his hand at film production. He was the producer of Vladimir Bortko's popular television mini-series "I have the honor of ..."

On Friday, "I have the honor of..." was awarded a TEFI, the highest television award in Russia, as best film.