BERLIN, May 21 (Portal) – German police said they were investigating the possible poisoning of two Russian exiles who were attending a conference in Berlin in late April organized by Russian Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Berlin police told Portal “a file has been opened” after German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, citing Russian investigative media group Agentstvo, said two women had reported symptoms suggesting possible poisoning.
The police did not provide any further information, citing the ongoing investigation.
According to media reports, one of the women was a journalist and her symptoms may have appeared before the April 29-30 conference. She went to the Berlin Charité.
The second woman was Natalia Arno, director of the NGO Free Russia Foundation. She wrote on her Facebook page that the door to her hotel room was left open.
She also wrote, “I woke up at 5am in severe pain and strange symptoms.”
In recent years, there have been several poisoning attacks against Kremlin opponents abroad and in Russia. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was treated in Russia and later in Germany because Western laboratory tests revealed an attempt to poison him with a nerve agent in Siberia in 2020.
The Moscow government has denied the allegations.
Navalny returned to Russia voluntarily from Germany in 2021. He was arrested in January of the same year and has been in prison ever since.
Reporting by Maria Martinez. Editing by Alexandra Hudson
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