Russia poisoned Putin critic Navalny in prison with ‘rare toxin’: European states
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Protesters and mourners rallied at the Russian Embassy following the death of Mr Alexei Navalny on Feb 16, 2024, in Washington.
PHOTO: AFP
MUNICH – Five European countries, including Britain, France and Germany, accused Russia of poisoning opposition leader Alexei Navalny
“The UK, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands are confident that Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a lethal toxin,” the countries said in a joint statement, following “analyses of samples” from his body.
The staunch critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin died in an Arctic prison in February 2024, while serving a 19-year prison sentence.
The epibatidine toxin, found in the skin of dart frogs native to South America, was found in samples and “highly likely resulted in his death”, the European states said.
“Only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin to target Navalny during his imprisonment in a Russian penal colony in Siberia, and we hold it responsible for his death,” the British Foreign Office added in a statement.
Mr Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya said it was now “science-proven” that the Kremlin opponent had been murdered.
“Two years ago, I came on stage here and said that it was Vladimir Putin who killed my husband,” Ms Navalnaya said on the sidelines of the conference.
“I was, of course, certain that it was a murder... but back then, it was just words. But today, these words have become science-proven facts.”
In September, she said that laboratory analysis of smuggled biological samples found that Mr Navalny was killed by poisoning
“Today, beside his widow, the UK is shining a light on the Kremlin’s barbaric plot to silence his voice,” British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, who met Ms Navalnaya while attending the Munich conference, said in a statement.
The countries said they had reported Russia to the world’s chemical weapons watchdog – the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons – over the finding.
“We are further concerned that Russia did not destroy all of its chemical weapons,” the countries said, accusing Moscow of breaching the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Mr Navalny was previously poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok in 2020 while campaigning in Siberia and was flown to Germany on an emergency evacuation flight, where he spent months recovering.
The charismatic anti-corruption campaigner had rallied hundreds of thousands across Russia in anti-Kremlin protests as he exposed the alleged ill-gotten gains of Mr Putin’s inner circle. AFP
