A plane carrying a prominent Russian politician who is in a coma following a suspected poisoning has left the Siberian city of Omsk in Germany, according to his spokeswoman.
The plane took off on Saturday just after 8am local time (02:00 GMT), after more than 24 hours of wrestling over the condition and treatment of Alexei Navalny, with opposition leader allies accusing Russian authorities of trying to stop his evacuation .
Navalny, a 44-year-old politician and corruption investigator who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critics, was admitted to an intensive care unit in Omsk on Thursday. His supporters believe that tea he drank was contaminated with poison – and that the Kremlin is behind both his illness and the delay in transferring him to a top German hospital.
Russian doctors say there is no evidence of poisoning, and the Kremlin denied that the authorities tried to prevent the transfer.
Even after German specialists arrived Friday morning on a plane equipped with advanced medical equipment managed by his family, Navalny doctors in Omsk said he was too unstable to relocate.
Navalny’s supporters denied that as a ploy by authorities to stop until any poison in his system could no longer be traced. The medical team of Omsk only trusted after a charity organized by the medevac plane revealed that the German doctors examined the politician and said he was fit to be transported.
Deputy Chief Physician of the Omsk Hospital Anatoly Kalinichenko then told reporters that Navalny’s condition had stabilized and that doctors “did not care” to transfer the politician, given that his relatives were ready to “take the risks”.
|
Russia Navalny ‘Poisoning’: German Doctors Access Politician (1:55) |
Navalny was transferred to an ambulance early Saturday and driven to the airport, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on Twitter.
“The plane that Alexei is flying is flying to Berlin,” she said. “Many thanks to everyone for their support. The fight for Alexei’s life and health has just begun … but now at least the first step has been taken.”
Alexey received a medical bill. He has no name pic.twitter.com/nCw5UsalG8
– Кира Ярмыш (@Kira_Yarmysh) August 22, 2020
The Kremlin’s opposition to the transfer was political, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying it was purely a medical decision. However, the turnaround came when international pressure on Russia’s leadership rose.
On Thursday, leaders from France and Germany said the two countries were ready to offer any support to Navalny and his family and insisted on an investigation into what happened. On Friday, Nabila Massrali, spokeswoman for the European Union, added that the bloc was carrying Russian authorities to allow him abroad.
Also on Friday, the European Court of Human Rights said it had asked a question from Navalny’s supporters that it urge the Russian government to remove the politician.
The most prominent member of Russia’s opposition, Navalny campaigned to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election, but was prevented from running. Since then, he has promoted opposition candidates in regional elections, and challenged members of the ruling party, United Russia.
His anti-corruption foundation has grafted exposure among government officials, including some at the highest level. But he had to close the foundation last month following a financially devastating lawsuit by a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.
Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at The Atlantic Council, told Al Jazeera that the alleged poisoning of Navalny was not the first time that critics of the Krelim had been targeted in such a way.
He noted the murder of Russian politician Boris Nemstov in 2015, the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who died in 2006 after drinking a cup of tea laced with radioactive plutonium, as well as the case of Sergei Skripal, a Russian spy who spent weeks in critical condition after being poisoned by military nerve agent Novichok in the British city of Salisbury.
“So clearly being a monotonous opposition leader as a corruption fighter or a whistleblower in Russia is indeed a dangerous business,” Cohen said.
“Navalny did a lot of work exposing corruption, including at the highest level … and this is what they do to take revenge on their critics.”
Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to hospital after the plane made an emergency landing. His team made arrangements to take him to Charite, a clinic in Berlin that has a history of treating renowned foreign leaders and dissidents.
Dr Yaroslav Ashikhmin, the doctor of Navalny in Moscow, told The Associated Press that being on a plane with special equipment, including a fan and a machine that can do the work of the heart and lungs, “even safer can be like in a hospital in Omsk “.
.
