Moscow-Sana
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced today that statements by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas prove that Germany is unwilling to reveal the truth about allegations of poisoning Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.
Tass quoted Zakharova as saying at a press conference, commenting on Maas’s statement in this regard that Russia insists that Germany meet the new request that the Russian Attorney General’s Office submitted on the 14th of this month to the German Federal Ministry of Justice to provide legal aid and share information about Navalny’s treatment and examination from Before German doctors.
Zakharova confirmed that the German side violated its previous obligations regarding the participation of medical samples in this case, according to the request submitted by the Russian General Prosecutor's Office on the 27th of last August. Nevertheless, the German partners later began to reduce their obligations “either under the pretext of the independence of the justice agencies or saying that it is necessary to obtain Consent of the patient’s relatives ”.
Zakharova indicated that these samples “are required to complete the pre-investigation examination conducted by Russian law enforcement agencies, which has been extended until the 20th of this month and under Russian laws, this examination is a necessary condition for opening a possible investigation into a criminal case,” confirming that no traces of poisoning have been found. During the medical examination that was conducted for the patient in Omsk on the 21st and 22nd of August.
She said Russia considers Maas' words that Russia should turn to the OPCW to obtain samples from Navalny as a flimsy pretext that Germany is not willing to reveal the truth.
Maas had said in previous statements that experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had taken samples from Navalny, and Russia, as a member of this organization, could refer its inquiries about the Navalny incident to it.
Navalny became ill on August 20, while flying from Tomsk to Moscow, and the plane landed in Omsk, and he was taken to hospital while he was in a coma, and he was connected to a ventilator, to be transported later by air to the Charité clinic in Berlin two days later, whose doctors claimed that they had been found. Signs of poisoning in his body.
The German government said earlier that German military toxicologists discovered that Navalny had been exposed to nerve gas from the Novichok family, and then Berlin and its Western partners called on Moscow to clarify the circumstances of the accident and warned that they would consider possible sanctions against Moscow.
The Russian side affirms its interest in conducting a comprehensive investigation into the accident and its readiness for comprehensive cooperation with Germany in this regard. Moscow also confirmed that no toxic substance was detected in Navalny's samples before its transfer to Germany, while the German side did not provide any evidence to support its allegations.
