Poison found in Russian dissident Alexei Navalnyâs system, German hospital says

Tests conducted on Russian dissident Alexei Navalny at a German hospital indicate that he was poisoned, but doctors said Monday he was being treated with an antidote and his life was not in immediate danger.
The CharitĂ© hospital said in a statement that the team of doctors who have been examining Navalny since he was flown from Siberia and admitted Saturday found indications of âcholinesterase inhibitorsâ in his system.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had personally offered Germanyâs assistance in treating Navalny before he was brought to Berlin, said in view of the findings and his âprominent role in the political opposition in Russia, authorities there are now called upon urgently to investigate this crime in detail and in full transparency.â
âThose responsible must be identified and held accountable,â Merkel said.
Cholinesterase inhibitors are a broad range of substances that are found in several drugs, but also pesticides and nerve agents. Charité said the specific substance to which Navalny was exposed is not yet known.
âThe patient is being treated in intensive care and remains in medically induced coma. While his condition is serious, it is not currently life-threatening,â the hospital said in a statement.
Past example shows that falling afoul of Putin can portend poison peril
Cholinesterase inhibitors act by blocking the breakdown of a key chemical in the body, acetycholine, that transmits signals between nerve cells.
This results in overstimulation of the junction between nerves and muscles. Each year hundreds of thousands of people suffer from cholinesterase inhibitors poisoning, mostly due to exposure to pesticides.
Navalny is being treated with the antidote atropine, the hospital said.
âAlexei Navalnyâs prognosis remains unclear; the possibility of long-term effects, particularly those affecting the nervous system, cannot be excluded,â it said.
Hours before a mass anti-Kremlin rally was to begin here Sunday, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny appeared in a live-streamed video to assure his followers that he had a cunning plan to avoid arrest.
The hospital added that it has been in close contact with Navalnyâs wife, Yulia Navalnaya, who visited her husband in the Berlin hospital on Sunday and Monday.
Navalny, a politician and corruption investigator who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putinâs fiercest critics, fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to a hospital in the city of Omsk after the plane made an emergency landing.
His supporters believe that tea the 44-year-old drank was laced with poison â and that the Kremlin is behind both his illness and a delay in transferring him to Germany.
German authorities posted a special detail of federal agents and city police at the hospital once Navalny arrived Saturday out of suspicion he had been the victim of an attack.
âIt was obvious that after his arrival, protective precautions had to be taken,â Merkelâs spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters Monday.
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Navalnyâs team last week submitted a request in Russia to launch a criminal inquiry, but as of Monday, Russiaâs Investigative Committee still has not opened a case, Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said.
Yarmysh pointed out that Navalnyâs team insisted the politician had been poisoned âfrom the very beginning, despite statements of the Omsk doctors and state propagandists.â
âNow our words have been confirmed by tests in independent laboratories. Navalnyâs poisoning is no longer a hypothesis, itâs a fact,â Yarmysh said in a tweet.
Ilya Yashin, an opposition politician in Moscow and a close ally of Navalny, in a video statement Monday urged Russiaâs law enforcement to investigate âan attempt at the life of a public figureâ and to look into the possible involvement of Putin.
âIt is Putin who benefits from these endless assaults,â Yashin said.
The Kremlin has not commented on the allegation.
A Republican-led Senate committee has concluded that Trumpâs 2016 campaign manager had business ties to a Russian agent.
U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan said the Navalny case would on the agenda for Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegunâs visit to Russia that begins Tuesday.
âWith Alexei Navalny in a hospital in Berlin, our dialogue with Russia must include reemphasizing the importance of free speech and civil society,â he told reporters.
Navalny was flown to Germany on Saturday from Siberia after much wrangling over whether he was stable enough to be transported.
Before the CharitĂ© announcement, Russian doctors said Monday that two laboratories there had found no poisonous substances in Navalnyâs system.
âIf we had found poisoning confirmed by something, it would have been much easier for us,â said Anatoly Kalinichenko, deputy chief doctor of the Omsk Ambulance Hospital No. 1, where Navalny was treated.
âBut we received a final conclusion from two laboratories that no toxic chemicals that can be considered poisons or by-products of poisons, were found.â
The hospitalâs chief doctor, Alexander Murakhovsky, rejected allegations made by Navalnyâs team that doctors in Omsk had been acting in coordination with Russiaâs security services.
âWe were treating the patient, and we saved him,â Murakhovsky said. âThere wasnât and couldnât be any influence on the patientâs treatment.â
He wasnât able to identify men in plainclothes spotted in the hospital last week who the politicianâs allies said were law enforcement and security service agents.
âI canât say who they were,â Murakhovsky said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week he didnât know anything about security service operatives being present at the hospital.
Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Navalny has been frequently detained by law enforcement and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups. In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.
Last year, Navalny was rushed to a hospital from jail, where he was serving a sentence on charges of violating protest regulations. His team also suspected poisoning then. Doctors said he had a severe allergic reaction and sent him back to detention the following day.
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