Moscow, April 11, (dpa/GNA) – Imprisoned Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, is once again seriously ill, according to his lawyer.
Last weekend, an ambulance had to be called at night to the prison camp where Navalny is being held, because of the severity of his stomach pain, the lawyer, Vadim Kobsev, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
“An unknown disease that nobody treats,” he added.
The 46-year-old Navalny, who already looked significantly emaciated on earlier video recordings, has now lost another eight kilograms in body weight over the last two weeks, Kobsev said.
He said the prison administration has refused to pass on the medications that Navalny’s mother sends to him.
Kobsev went on to say that he would not rule out that Navalny is being poisoned or otherwise intentionally sickened, and demanded toxicological and radiological examinations of his client.
The Kremlin critic barely survived a 2020 assassination attempt using the neurotoxin Novichok.
“That may sound like nonsense and paranoia to others, but not to Navalny after Novichok,” said the lawyer.
Navalny himself blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for ordering the attack on him. The Kremlin has denied involvement.
For more than two years, Navalny has been kept in particularly harsh prison conditions in a penal camp about 260 kilometres north-east of Moscow.
He was sentenced by a Russian court for alleged fraud, but Navalny is widely viewed as a political prisoner of Putin’s regime. Internationally, he is the best-known Russian opposition figure.
In the past few months, he has been placed numerous times in a small solitary cell, where he has repeatedly complained of health problems.
GNA