The German federal police doubled their numbers Monday evening in Berlin in front of the Charité hospital where the Russian opponent Alexeï Navalny is located, still in a coma. Transferred to this country last weekend, Alexeï Navalny had suffered a discomfort on board a plane as part of a trip to Siberia last week. Germany concluded Monday that the opponent was poisoned, her chancellor not hesitating to raise her voice in the face of denials by the Russian authorities. Protection is therefore maximum around the hospital.
Germany calls on Russian authorities "to resolve this matter"
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Endorsing the results of clinical tests carried out in several laboratories, Angela Merkel said that these "point in the direction of poisoning". "The authorities" in Russia "are urgently called upon to resolve this affair down to the smallest detail and in full transparency," she urged in a joint statement with her head of diplomacy Heiko Maas. The pair demand that those responsible "be brought to justice" to answer for their actions.
This position, of a rare firmness for a chancellor with usually measured positions, came shortly after the hospital where Alexeï Navalny was admitted declared to have found "traces of poisoning".
"The certainty of poisoning is shocking" and reflects "a repulsive policy" of Russian leaders, for his part took offense the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag Norbert Röttgen, interviewed by the magazine Der Spiegel .
For his part, the head of European Union diplomacy Josep Borrell called on Moscow for an "independent and transparent investigation into the poisoning" of the Russian opponent.
Russian doctors say they were "under no pressure"
The doctors caring for Alexey Navalny in Germany are giving him treatment, but they are pessimistic: the poison has attacked the nervous and neurological system, and there may be long-term sequelae. "The clinical results indicate intoxication with a substance from the group of cholinesterase inhibitors," reveals the hospital.
This enzyme is likely to be used, in low doses, against Alzheimer's disease. But depending on the dosage, it can be very dangerous and also produce strong nerve agents, such as the innervating agent Novichok.
In March 2018, the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were according to London poisoned in Great Britain with this Soviet design agent.
Faced with the virulence of comments coming from Germany, the Russian response was quick. Monday evening, the Siberian doctors who took care of Nawalny after his discomfort last week reiterated that they had not found any trace of poisoning. They also assured again that they had not been subjected to "any external pressure" or interference from official officials to prevent the transfer to Germany of Alexey Navalny.
Some supporters of the Kremlin's No.1 opponent, however, suspect that the transfer was delayed so that the poison he allegedly ingested became more difficult to detect.