Alexei Navalny case: Russian police announce launching an investigation

Alexei Navalny participating in a march in memory of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in Moscow on February 29, 2020. AP Photo / Pavel Golovkin

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Russia announced Thursday, August 27 that it had initiated a "preliminary examination" of the Alexeï Navalny case, a week after the opponent was admitted to a Siberian hospital. Alexeï Navalny is currently being cared for at Charité Hospital in Berlin. German doctors consider the poisoning thesis probable. According to his supporters, this is a certainty.

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With our correspondent in Moscow, Etienne Bouche

The transport police of the Federal District of Siberia issued a very concise statement on Thursday, August 27. The latter mentions the inspection of the places where Alexeï Navalny went during his very guarded passage in the city of Tomsk, the hotel room he occupied, in particular. The text evokes the seizure of a hundred objects but also the analysis of data from video surveillance cameras.

These checks come a week after the alleged poisoning of Alexeï Navalny. They should have been carried out much earlier, according to Ivan Zhdanov, a relative of the opponent who wants a criminal investigation to be opened. The prosecution claims to hold "  no evidence of intentional criminal acts  ". He wished Thursday to take note of the medical examinations carried out in Germany.

If the affair scandalized Western chancelleries, the Kremlin seems on the other hand to want to minimize it. There is no matter for investigation, considers his spokesperson who declares: "  How can we speak of poisoning if there is no poison ? This Thursday, August 27, public television broadcast an interview with Vladimir Poutine. The Russian president was not questioned on the subject.

► To read also: The main Russian opponent Alexeï Navalny between life and death

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