Comatose dissident Alexei Navalny leaves Russia for Germany

Russian dissident politician Alexei Navalny left Russia early Saturday on a flight bound for Germany following more than 24 hours of wrangling between German and Russian medics.

An ambulance carrying Navalny arrived at Omsk airport at around 6 a.m. local time (00:30 UTC). He left in a private plane chartered by German NGO Cinema for Peace that was sent to fly Navalny to Berlin.

Shortly before takeoff, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on Twitter that he had boarded the plane.

“The fight for Alexei’s life and health is just beginning and there is a long way to go, but at least the first step has been taken,” she said.

Navalny is in a coma after a suspected poisoning. Russia gave permission for the NGO to transfer the 44-year-old to the German capital from Siberia on Friday. Initially Russian medical professionals said he was not in a fit state to travel by plane, but relented when the German doctors declared he could be transported.

Navalny will now be treated in Berlin’s Charité hospital. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was among those who pushed for a speedy transfer for Navalny to Germany.

Read more: Alexei Navalny: A Russian dissident battles Kremlin, Putin

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  A history of political poisonings

  Alexei Navalny

  Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was rushed to hospital in Siberia after being taken ill on a flight to Moscow. His aides allege he was poisoned in revenge for his campaigns against corruption. The 44-year-old lawyer apparently only drank black tea before taking off from Omsk airport, which his team think was laced with a toxin that put him in a coma.

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  Pyotr Verzilov

  In 2018, Russian-Canadian activist Pyotr Verzilov was reported to be in a critical condition after allegedly being poisoned in Moscow. It happened shortly after he gave a TV interview criticizing Russia’s legal system. Verzilov, the unofficial spokesman for the rock group Pussy Riot, was transferred to a hospital in Berlin where doctors said it was “highly probable” that he had been poisoned.

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  Sergei Skripal

  Sergei Skripal, a 66-year-old former Russian spy, was found unconscious on a bench outside a shopping center in the British city of Salisbury after he was exposed to what was later revealed to be the nerve agent Novichok. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the situation “tragic” but said, “We don’t have information about what could be the cause” of the incident.

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  The estranged half-brother of Kim Jong Un was killed on February 13, 2018 at Kuala Lumpur airport after two women allegedly smeared the chemical nerve agent VX on his face. In February, a Malaysian court heard that Kim Jong Nam had been carrying a dozen vials of antidote for the deadly nerve agent VX in his backpack at the time of the poisoning.

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  Alexander Litvinenko

  Former Russian spy Litvinenko had worked for the Federal Security Service (FSB) before he defected to Britain, where he became a journalist and wrote two books of accusations against the FSB and Putin. He became ill after meeting with two former KGB officers and died on November 23, 2006. A government inquiry found he was killed by radioactive polonium-210 which it alleged the men put in his tea.

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  Viktor Kalashnikov

  In November 2010, doctors at Berlin’s Charité hospital discovered high levels of mercury had been found in a Russian dissident couple working in Berlin. Kalashnikov, a freelance journalist and former KGB colonel, had 3.7 micrograms of mercury per litre of blood, while his wife had 56 micrograms. A safe level is 1-3 micrograms. Viktor reportedly told German magazine Focus that “Moscow poisoned us.”

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  Ukrainian opposition leader Yushchenko became sick in September 2004 and was diagnosed with acute pancreatis caused by a viral infection and chemical substances. The illness resulted in facial disfigurement, with pockmarks, bloating and jaundice. Doctors said the changes to his face were from chloracne, which is a result of dioxin poisoning. Yushchenko claimed government agents poisoned him.

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  On September 25, 1997, Israel’s intelligence agency attempted to assassinate Hamas leader Meshaal, under orders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Two agents sprayed a poisonous substance into Meshaal’s ear as he walked into the Hamas offices in Amman, Jordan. The assassination attempt was unsuccessful and not long afterward the two Israeli agents were captured.

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  A history of political poisonings

  Georgi Markov

  In 1978, Bulgarian dissident Markov was waiting at a bus stop after a shift at the BBC when he felt a sharp jab in his thigh. He turned to see a man picking up an umbrella. A small bump appeared where he felt the jab and four days later he died. An autopsy found he’d been killed by a small pellet containing a 0.2-milligram dose of ricin. Many believe the poisoned dart was fired from the umbrella.

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  A history of political poisonings

  Grigori Rasputin

  On December 30, 1916, mystic and spiritual healer Rasputin arrived at Yusupov Palace in St Petersburg at the invitation Prince Felix Yusupov. There, Prince Yusupov offered Rasputin cakes laced with potassium cyanide but he just kept eating them. Yusupov then gave him wine in a cyanide-laced wine glasses, but still Rasputin continued to drink. With the poison failing, Rasputin was shot and killed.

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Targeted by Kremlin

The politician and corruption investigator is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s harshest and most prominent critics. His supporters say that tea he drank was laced with poison and the Kremlin is responsible.

Navalny was rushed to hospital in Omsk on Thursday. Russian doctors say there is no evidence of poisoning, claiming Navalny has a “metabolic disorder.”

Navalny’s supporters said the delay in giving permission for him to be transferred was a ploy to stall his treatment until there was no more poison in his system. The Kremlin denied the claim.

Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Navalny has frequently been detained by law enforcement and pro-Kremlin groups. He was rushed to hospital in 2017 from jail in what doctors called a “severe allergic reaction” but supporters suspect may have been a poisoning.

He served time for violating protest regulations. 

ed/nm (AFP, Reuters)

Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/comatose-dissident-alexei-navalny-leaves-russia-for-germany/a-54655875?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf