Alexei Navalny novichok finding prompts calls for answers from Moscow
World leaders are
demanding answers from the Kremlin after toxicological examinations indicated
that the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was
poisoned with a nerve agent from the novichok family. The German
chancellor, Angela
Merkel, revealed that tests carried out at a military laboratory had
“identified unequivocally” the Soviet era nerve agent. She referred to the case
as an “attempted murder” and said the findings raised “very difficult questions
that only the Russian government can answer, and has to answer”. The UK prime minister,
Boris Johnson, called the
findings “outrageous” and said: “The Russian government must now explain what
happened to Mr Navalny.”
Navalny, whose foundation publishes investigations
into corruption among high-level officials in Russia, fell
ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on 20 August and was
transferred to Berlin two days later. Doctors who treated
him in the Siberian city of Omsk, where his flight made an emergency landing,
insisted there was no proof of poisoning and were initially
reluctant to allow him to leave the country on a specially equipped plane.....
