‘Poisoned’ Putin critic is flown to Berlin in a coma
KREMLIN critic Alexei Navalny who was in a coma after drinking a suspected poisoned cup of tea arrived in Berlin yesterday for treatment.
The politician and corruption investigator, who is one of President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics,was flown into the German capital on board an air ambulance.
Navalny, 44, had collapsed while on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and after an emergency landing was transferred to a hospital in Omsk.
But his allies claimed the tea he had at the airport was spiked and the Kremlin was behind this and the delay in transferring him to Germany
The medevac aircraft had arrived on Friday but hospital officials claimed he was too unwell to be moved, which his supporters denounced as a delaying tactic until any remaining poison had left his body.
Hospital officials also suggested a metabolic disorder was the most likely diagnosis and a drop in blood sugar may have caused Navalny to lose consciousness.
But amid mounting international pressure, the flight was allowed to leave at short notice yesterday.
Jaka Bizilj, of the German
NGO Cinema For Peace which chartered the flight said: “His health condition is very worrying.
“We got a very clear message from the doctors that if there had not been an emergency landing in Omsk, he would have died,”
The Charite hospital where
Navalny is being treated said extensive tests were being carried out and doctors would not comment on his illness until those were completed.
Navalny’s personal doctor Anastasia Vasilyeva also said he had regular check ups and had been in good health.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme she said she had been barred from visiting her patient but had spoken to Russian doctors and it was “not very good news”.
Navalny had been left with brain damage and placed in an induced coma ma to stop his “very deep convulsions.”
She said: “What can lead to this condition? Only some toxic substance. Russian doctors didn’t say anything about it.
“They said it is only metabolic changes and carbohydrate changes. But all doctors can understand that no damage and changes of the metabolic system can lead to damage of the brain.”
Western toxicology experts also doubted that a poisoning could have been ruled out so quickly.
Emeritus Professor Alastair Hay at the University of Leeds, said: “It takes a while to rule things out.
“And particularly if something is highly toxic – it will be there in very low concentrations, and many screening tests would just not pick that substance up.” Like
SILENCED: Outspoken Alexei Navalny, left, leaves Russia yesterday, above many opposition politicians in Russia, Navalny has been frequently detained and harassed by pro-kremlin groups. He was barred from running in the 2018 presidential elections.
It would not be the first time a prominent outspoken Russian had been targeted in such a way.
Alexander Litvinenko who left Russia after exposing Vladimir Putin’s corruption was fatally poisoned after he drank tea laced with radioactive Polonium in a London hotel in 2006. It is widely believed his killers were sent on the orders of Putin.
Two years ago anti-kremlin activist and a member of the Pussy Riot art collective Pyotr Verzilov was treated at The Charite hospital after he was poisoned in Moscow.
‘His condition is very worrying’
struggle out of a now flaming cockpit. He then had to watch in horror as his brother descended beneath a burning parachute.
Petrol from the ruptured fuel tank had obviously sprayed back into the cockpit, setting fire to Basil’s clothing, harness and parachute pack. When the parachute canopy opened, it also caught fire.
All Antony could do was watch as his brother plummeted to his death, the Hurricane slamming into farm buildings on the outskirts of Selsey and exploding.
Somehow, however, Antony composed himself for a shaky return to Croydon.
On the ground for just minutes, the squadron were again scrambled to intercept yet another raid at around 19.05 hours, moments after the ground crew had turned the Hurricanes around in record time. Antony Fisher, meanwhile, was in shock.
Quite remarkably, he again took off with his squadron – only to find they were now being ordered to intercept an attack on their home airfield, Croydon.
The Tannoy barked an order to ground crew: “Take cover! Attack imminent!”
As another massive air battle unfolded over Surrey, Kent and Sussex, 111 Squadron claimed several of the raiders.
However, when the squadron’s exhausted pilots finally got back to Croydon they found the place ablaze and smoking.
Wrecked buildings and hangars, smashed aircraft, piles of rubble and a cratered landing ground made the place unrecognisable.
Reeling from the death of his brother only an hour or so beforehand, and as shock took hold, Antony stumbled towards his billet among what was now chaos.
What he found when he got to the quarters shared with his brother was little more than a pile of burning debris. Both his own and Basil’s personal possessions were gone, incinerated in the rubble.
Coming across the squadron’s adjutant surveying the widespread destruction, Antony learned that some of the ground crew had also died. Included in a roll call of the dead were Dell,
Halley, Hulse, Davis, Couling and Mills. Aircraftsmen Alfred Fowler and Frank Westmoreland had been severely injured.
Later that day, the adjutant had the grim task of writing up the squadron’s operational record book. In it, he recorded: “Combat Report for Pilot Officer A Fisher not available as he is on sick leave suffering from a nervous breakdown.”
On August 15, 1940, RAF Command lost 13 pilots.
Meanwhile, 14 RAF airmen and one WAAF airwoman had died in air attacks on airfields around Britain.
The next day, during a raid on RAF Tangmere, another 10 groundcrew died in a dive-bombing attack. Several others were injured. Two RAF ambulancemen were awarded the Military Medal for extricating a badly-burned pilot from his Hurricane, while the Medical Officer was awarded the Military Cross for continuing his work while buried up to his waist
Fighter in the rubble of the sick bay. The heroism of Churchill’s Few is something the nation has never forgotten.
Of the gallant aircrew, 544 were killed and 422 wounded. But they should be honoured equally with the men and women who served bravely on the ground – 312 RAF ground personnel were killed during the Battle of Britain (including three WAAF personnel) and another 467 were wounded.
The pilots and aircrew rightly have their monuments and memorials. Yet those on the ground are scarcely remembered.
Along with their pilots, it may be said they were truly brothers-in-arms.
Antony Fisher survived the war although he did not fly operationally again after the death of Basil. He was awarded the AFC in 1944 and left the service as a Squadron Leader in July 1945.
He later became a successful businessman and entrepreneur, but never got over the death of his younger brother.
He founded the Institute of Economic Affairs in 1955 and greatly influenced the thinking of Margaret Thatcher, to whom he was an adviser.
He was knighted in 1988 and died in San Francisco later that year.