Probe starts after BBC journalist Kate Mitchell found dead inside a hotel room in Nairobi

The journalist was assigned to BBC Media Action's Ethiopian office and is said to have recently returned to the country.

The journalist may have been strangled to death by a man she had been with earlier at the hotel after allegedly getting into an altercation, according to investigations.

Mitchell is reported to have pressed the alarm bell when the altercation worsened. She was strangled before she could receive any help.

According to Nairobi Regional Police Commander Benjamin Nthumbi, Mitchell's hotel room's door was locked from inside when detectives arrived.

They found her  body inside the room and noticed some shards of a broken window  on the floor.

"Upon checking through the window, the detectives saw a man's body lying on the ground. He was later identified as the man Mitchell had been seen with earlier," Nthumbi said.

"The man had jumped off the eighth floor of the hotel through the room's window," said Mr Nthumbi.

Commander Thumbi said that investigations are ongoing to determine Mitchell's cause of death.

Meanwhile, an internal communication memo to BBC staff in Nairobi says the circumstances surrounding her death are unclear.

"We are working with the UK High commission and the police in Nairobi... there is no indication that her death is connected to her work or to the BBC," the memo to staff stated.

Prior to working in Ethiopia, Mitchell worked in Zambia and South Sudan.