Russia: No need for criminal probe into Navalny case

MOSCOW: Russian prosecutors said on Thursday they saw no need for a criminal investigation into the sudden illness of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who his supporters suspect was poisoned, as they had found no sign that any crime had been committed.

Navalny, a politician and corruption investigator who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia about a week ago and was taken to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk after the plane made an emergency landing.

Last weekend, he was transferred to the Charité hospital in Berlin, where doctors found indications of “cholinesterase inhibitors” in his system.

Navalny is in a medically-induced coma in Berlin’s Charite hospital where he remains in serious but stable condition and his symptoms are receding, according to hospital officials .

The hospital said its initial medical examination pointed to poisoning, though Russian doctors who had treated Navalny in a Siberian hospital have contradicted that diagnosis.

The Siberian branch of the interior ministry’s transportation unit said it was carrying out a preliminary investigation into the case, but this was routine.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the prospect of a coordinated European response, should evidence mount Navalny was the target of a poison attack.

Although Navalny fell ill on a domestic Russian flight to Moscow, the German leader drew a link between the case and the 2018 attempted murder of a former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter in the UK. “When we have more clarity about the background.. we will certainly try to have a European reaction, not only reactions by individual states,” Merkel said.