The doctor of Russia’s opposition leader Alexei Navalny has accused medics of lying over his condition as he is cleared to return to prison today.
Anastasia Vasilyeva revealed Navalny had been discharged from a Moscow hospital – where he was being treated for an unexplained health problem – and returned to prison under guard.
Separately, Navalny’s lawyer Olga Mikhailova told reporters in front of the hospital her client had been poisoned by an unidentified chemical agent, which was put forward by Vasilyeva a day earlier.
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Anastasia Vasilyeva (pictured today), the former doctor of Russia’s opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has accused medics of lying over his condition as he is cleared to return to prison today
Navalny (pictured), 43, was rushed to hospital from jail on Sunday morning with what his spokesman said were signs of an acute allergy with ‘severe swelling of the face and skin redness’
Navalny, 43, was rushed to hospital from jail on Sunday morning with what his spokesman said were signs of an acute allergy with ‘severe swelling of the face and skin redness.’
He has been serving a 30-day jail sentence for calling for a rally on Saturday after authorities blocked prominent independent candidates from taking part in Moscow parliament elections in September.
Vasilyeva, who treated Navalny for a serious eye injury in the past, accused his doctors of not wanting to investigate what had caused his illness.
Vasilyeva (pictured), who treated Navalny for a serious eye injury in the past, accused his doctors of not wanting to investigate what had caused his illness
The ophthalmologist said: ‘They say he simply has hives. But why are you lying?’
‘They have decided against establishing the cause of generalised oedema and rash.’
She told the independent channel TV Rain that samples of Navalny’s tissue would undergo independent tests.
She also said she was finally allowed to examine the politician.
The Moscow hospital treating him said it had discharged him after his condition had improved.
It said it could not disclose what it believed had been behind his sudden illness due to patient confidentiality.
Elena Sibikina, one of the doctors who treated Navalny, said the idea that he had been poisoned with a chemical substance had ‘not been proven’. She said his life was not in danger.
‘He was really poisoned by some unknown chemical substance,’ Olga Mikhailova (pictured), his lawyer, told reporters
His own doctor and lawyer said they opposed the ‘strange’ decision to return Navalny to a prison cell where they believe he was somehow poisoned in the first place.
‘He was really poisoned by some unknown chemical substance,’ Olga Mikhailova, his lawyer, told reporters.
‘But what the substance was has not been established.’
Navalny (pictured leaving court on Wednesday) was jailed for 30 days for calling for an unauthorised march to protest against the exclusion of several opposition-minded candidates from a local election later this year
Vasilyeva said she had taken samples of his hair and a T-shirt to be tested at an independent laboratory for signs he had been poisoned.
She said she also wanted CCTV footage of his cell to be examined.
Vasilyeva said Navalny had a severe rash on his upper body, skin lesions and discharge from his eye which she described as a reaction to an unknown chemical substance.
She dismissed the idea that he may have had a chance allergic reaction to something he had unwittingly come in contact with like washing powder.
‘How can you unintentionally poison someone?’ she said, adding it had probably been done to scare him.
A doctor at the hospital told the Interfax news agency on Sunday evening that Navalny had been diagnosed with hives.
But Mikhailova, his lawyer, said none of the doctors had mentioned the idea that he had hives on Monday.
It came after police rounded up more than 1,000 marchers in Moscow on Saturday in one of the biggest crackdowns of recent years against an increasingly defiant opposition decrying President Vladimir Putin’s tight grip on power.
Navalny’s sudden hospitalisation infuriated supporters who suspect he may have been targeted as part of one of the biggest crackdowns in recent years against the opposition.
Police rounded up more than 1,000 people in the Russian capital at the march on Saturday in one of the biggest crackdowns of recent years against an increasingly defiant opposition decrying President Vladimir Putin’s tight grip on power
Chants of ‘Russia without Putin’ and ‘Putin resign’ echoed through central Moscow as guardsmen clad in riot gear beat back protesters with batons and roughly detained people
Police wrestled with protesters around the mayor’s office, sometimes charging into the crowd with their batons raised. OVD-Info, an organisation that monitors political arrests in Russia , said 638 people were detained