#Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned, German hospital says

Russian opposition leader and Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was poisoned, according to a German hospital where he is being treated while in a medially induced coma after being transferred from Siberia, according to reports.

“The team of doctors examined the patient in detail after his arrival. The clinical findings indicate poisoning by a substance from the group of active substances called cholinesterase inhibitors,” the Charité hospital in Berlin said in a statement Monday, Reuters reported.

“His health is serious, but there is currently no acute danger to his life,” the statement said.

Cholinesterase inhibitors are a broad range of substances that are found in a variety drugs, but also in pesticides and nerve agents.

The doctors said they still don’t know what specific substance Navalny, 44, was exposed to.

Navalny, who is in critical but stable condition, is being treated with the antidote atropine but the outcome remains uncertain because long-term effects — particularly in the nervous system — cannot be ruled out, the statement added.

He also is under protection by Berlin police and federal authorities to ensure his safety after Chancellor Angela Merkel personally offered the country’s assistance, officials said.

“It was obvious that after his arrival, protective precautions had to be taken,” Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters. “After all, this is a patient who, with a certain degree of probability, was poisoned.”

Navalny’s supporters believe he drank tea that was laced with poison — and that the Kremlin is behind both his illness and a delay in moving him to Germany.

But Russian doctors have said that tests have shown no traces of poison in his system. The Kremlin hasn’t yet commented on the findings by the German doctors.

Last week, Navalny’s team submitted a request in Russia to launch a criminal probe, but as of Monday, the Investigative Committee still has not opened a case, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said.

Ilya Yashin, a Nvalany ally and opposition politician in Moscow, in a video statement Monday urged Russian authorities to investigate “an attempt at a life of a public figure” and to look into the possible involvement of President Vladimir Putin.

“It is Putin who benefits from these endless assaults,” Yashin said.

John Sullivan, the US ambassador to Russia, said Navalny’s case would on the agenda for Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun’s visit to Russia that begins Tuesday.

“With Alexei Navalny in a hospital in Berlin, our dialogue with Russia must include reemphasizing the importance of free speech and civil society,” he told reporters.

If Navalny is found to have been poisoned “that would represent a crucial moment in Russia,” he said.


Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to the hospital in the city of Omsk after the plane made an emergency landing.

On Monday, Russian doctors said two labs found no poisonous substances in his system.

With Post wires