U.N. EXPERTS URGE PROBE INTO NAVALNY’S POISONING
Two top U.N. human rights experts urged an international probe into the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and called Monday for his release from prison.
Agnes Callamard, the special U.N. rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and Irene Khan, the special U.N. rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, said Navalny’s poisoning was intended to “send a clear, sinister warning that this would be the fate of anyone who would criticize and oppose the government.”
“Given the inadequate response of the domestic authorities, the use of prohibited chemical weapons, and the apparent pattern of attempted targeted killings, we believe that an international investigation should be carried out as a matter of urgency in order to establish the facts and clarify all the circumstances concerning Mr. Navalny’s poisoning,” they said in a statement.
Navalny, the most prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, fell sick on Aug. 20 during a domestic flight in Russia and was flown while still in a coma to Berlin for treatment two days later. Labs in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, established that he was exposed to a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent. Russian authorities have denied involvement in the poisoning.
In December, Navalny released the recording of a call he said he made to a man he described as an alleged member of a group of officers of the Federal Security Service who purportedly poisoned him in August and then tried to cover it up. The FSB dismissed the recording as a fake.