(ANSA) - ROME, APRIL 14 - "The situation" of Alexei Navalny "is critical, we are all very worried".
He told the Guardian Ruslan Shaveddinov, close to the Russian opponent in prison, who felt severe stomach pain on Friday night.
"We understood that the situation must have been very serious because an ambulance was called," he added, stating that prison authorities refused to admit Navalny to hospital.
The anti-Putin blogger's entourage believes he was poisoned: "Our theory is that they are gradually killing him, using a slow-acting poison through food," Shaveddinov said.
Shaveddinov said last week an ambulance was called to the maximum security penal colony IK-6 in Melekhovo, 250km from Moscow, where Navalny is being held.
And since then there have been no updates on his health conditions, because "the prison authorities are doing everything possible to isolate him", added the ally of the 46-year-old Russian opponent, who must serve 11 years in prison for fraud and contempt of court: charges that , according to human rights groups, were invented to allow him to be silenced.
Navalny's last social media post dates back to Thursday, the day before his condition worsened.
On that occasion he had launched an appeal to the Georgian authorities to release former president Mikheil Saakashvili from prison and subject him to medical treatment.
(HANDLE).
