The Russian police announced Thursday to have launched a first "preliminary examination" in the case Alexeï Navalny, probable victim of a poisoning according to its German doctors, a track excluded so far in Russia.
Russian investigators have launched "preliminary examinations related to the hospitalization of Alexey Navalny on August 20 in Omsk," the Siberian branch of the Russian Interior Ministry said in a statement, adding that they had inspected the places where he had been. and seized "more than 100 objects which may have value of proof".
“The hotel room in which he resided” in Tomsk, a city where he was poisoned according to his relatives, was also inspected and “the data from the CCTV cameras analyzed,” added this press release.
Artificial coma
Alexeï Navalny was admitted to intensive care last week in a hospital in Omsk (Siberia) after feeling unwell on the plane that was to bring him back from Tomsk to Moscow. His entourage immediately denounced the poisoning and he was then transferred to Berlin where he is plunged into an artificial coma, in serious condition even though his life is not in danger.
The German doctors who treat him announced that he had been poisoned by "a substance from the group of cholinesterase inhibitors", without being able to specify which one.
The Kremlin has repeatedly deemed these conclusions "hasty", rejected the term poisoning, also deeming Western calls for a "transparent" investigation into the matter to be unwelcome. France, in particular, condemned a "criminal act".