Ukraine Resumes Inquiry Into Poisoning

The Ukrainian prosecutor-general’s office announced Sunday that it had reopened an investigation into allegations that presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned, after doctors in Austria confirmed he had ingested dioxin.

Returning to Kiev after checking out of a Vienna clinic, Yushchenko said he was sure that members of the government were responsible for the dioxin poisoning that had disfigured his face and caused other symptoms. “I am convinced that this is the work of the authorities, absolutely convinced,” Yushchenko told reporters at Kiev’s airport.

The pro-Western reformer is engaged in a bitter presidential contest with Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and has alleged since suddenly falling ill in September that he was poisoned in an assassination attempt. Authorities have denied the charge, and some pro-government politicians have ridiculed it.

Yushchenko fell sick Sept. 6, a day after having late-night food and drinks with Ihor Smeshko, head of the Security Service of Ukraine, and others.

The prosecutor-general’s office dropped its investigation of the allegation in late October. Serhiy Rudenko, a spokesman, said then that no poisoning agents had been found in forensic medical tests and that there were no data to prove deliberate poisoning.

Speaking to reporters Sunday at the private Rudolfinerhaus clinic in Vienna, where doctors announced Saturday that they had confirmed dioxin poisoning, Yushchenko said a full-scale investigation should wait until after Dec. 26, when he faces Yanukovich in a repeat election.

The Supreme Court ordered the revote after ruling that the Nov. 21 balloting, narrowly won by Yanukovich according to the official count, was invalid due to fraud. “I don’t want this factor to influence the election in some way -- either as a plus or a minus,” Yushchenko said. “This question will require a great deal of time and serious investigation. Let us do it after the election. Today is not the moment.”

Yushchenko said massive street protests in central Kiev, which helped prompt parliament to enact electoral reforms aimed at preventing fraud in the revote, had brought historic change to Ukraine.

“I think that the heart of Ukraine moved to Independence Square in Kiev over the last three weeks. And old people, young people, everyone were defending not Yushchenko but they were defending their choice for the type of Ukraine they want to see in the future,” he said as his U.S.-born wife, Kateryna Chumachenko, translated.

“We hadn’t seen anything like that for the past 100 years,” Yushchenko said. “I think it would be appropriate to compare this to the fall of the Soviet Union or the fall of the Berlin Wall.... Over the last three weeks, you have seen a different country, a different nation. The regime that was in place for 14 years in Ukraine is now living its last days.”

The opposition candidate also praised Ukrainian boxer Vitali Klitschko for “fighting wonderfully in an orange scarf” tied to his shorts in Las Vegas on Saturday in a successful defense of his World Boxing Council heavyweight title. Orange is the theme color for Yushchenko’s campaign. The fight was broadcast in Ukraine on Sunday, and the symbol would not have been lost on viewers.

Additionally, Yushchenko expressed appreciation for the efforts of his doctors, who had said that damage to his internal organs could have been fatal if treatment had been delayed for several more days. “I am very happy to be alive in this world today, and I thank these people for this,” he said, a flash of emotion crossing his wife’s face as she translated the words.

Speaking in English, clinic chief Michael Zimpfer thanked doctors from around the world who had helped “to clarify the difficult Yushchenko illness that has not been observed anywhere else beforehand.”

Although dioxin poisoning is not medically unknown, it typically occurs through environmental exposure, when it is inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Doctors said Saturday that damage to Yushchenko’s digestive system suggested the poison had been ingested.

“It would have been easy to put it in a cream soup,” Zimpfer speculated Saturday.

At Kiev airport, Yushchenko said it should not take too long to reach a conclusion in the attempted murder case. “A lot of the circumstances are already known,” he said. “I think if the general prosecutor acts according to Ukraine’s laws, both the country and the world at large will soon know who did this.”

Yushchenko declined to comment on how he might have been poisoned, saying that determining this would be the work of judges and prosecutors.

Sonya Yee of The Times’ Vienna Bureau contributed to this report.