1 of 2 View of Berlin, the capital of Germany, in April 2020 Photo: Michele Tantussi/Portal View of Berlin, the capital of Germany, in April 2020 Photo: Michele Tantussi/Portal
German police said they were investigating the possibility of the poisoning of two Russian women in exile who were attending a conference in Berlin in late April. The information comes from the Portal news agency.
The conference was organized by the Russian critic of the Kremlin government, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Berlin police told Portal that “a dossier has been opened” after German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, citing Russian investigative media group Agentstvo, said two women had reported symptoms suggesting possible poisoning.
Authorities gave no further details and said it was an ongoing investigation.
The newspaper states that one of the women is a journalist and that her symptoms may have appeared before the April 2930 conference. She went to the Charité clinic in the German capital.
The second woman is Natalia Arno, director of the NGO Free Russia Foundation. She wrote on her Facebook profile that she found the door of her hotel room ajar. “I woke up at 5 a.m. and was in severe pain and had strange symptoms,” she said.
In recent years, several poison attacks against Kremlin opponents inside and outside of Russia have been identified.
2 of 2 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is seen on a screen via video link from the IK2 penal colony in Pokrov during a hearing to consider an appeal against his prison sentence in Moscow, Russia February 24, 2022. Photo : Portal/Evgenia Novozhenina /Archive Photo Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny gestures on a screen via a video link from the IK2 penal colony in Pokrov during a hearing to consider an appeal against his prison sentence in Moscow, Russia May 24 see , 2022. Photo: Portal/Evgenia Novozhenina/File Photo
The Moscow government has denied the allegations. Navalny returned to Russia voluntarily from Germany in 2021. He was arrested in January of that year and has been in custody ever since.