Moscow: A former chief of Soviet intelligence is believed to have committed suicide in Moscow by shooting himself with a pistol days after celebrating his 77th birthday, police and investigators said on Friday.

A police official, speaking to a news agency on condition of anonymity, said the body of Leonid Shebarshin had been found in his centrally located Moscow apartment earlier in the day. He is believed to have shot himself with his pistol, the official said. "According to preliminary information, he might have committed suicide," investigators said in a separate statement, adding the gun was found next to the man`s body.
Born in 1935, Shebarshin celebrated his 77th birthday on March 24, according to Russia`s Foreign Intelligence Service. A veteran intelligence officer, Shebarshin was the head of the First Main Directorate of the KGB, also known as foreign intelligence, between 1989 and 1991, the year which saw the collapse of the Soviet Union.
PTI