Moscow: Russian police on Thursday announced a preliminary probe into the circumstances of the sudden illness of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who fell into a coma last week following a suspected poisoning and amid growing pressure from Western officials to investigate.
According to a statement released on Thursday by Russia's interior ministry, investigators in Siberia have been working to establish all the circumstances of the incident, conducting forensic studies and collecting items that may have probative value.
Read also: Russian opposition politician Navalny poisoned, in coma
Navalny, an opposition politician and corruption investigator who is one of President Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics, fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia last Thursday and was taken to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk after the plane made an emergency landing.
Over the weekend, he was transferred to the Charite hospital in Berlin, where doctors found indications of "cholinesterase inhibitors" in his system. But the hospital in Berlin hasn't yet identified a specific substance.
Found in some drugs, pesticides and chemical nerve agents, cholinesterase inhibitors act by blocking the breakdown of a key chemical in the body, acetycholine, which transmits signals between nerve cells.
His allies insist he was deliberately poisoned and said that Kremlin was behind it, accusations that officials denounced as "empty noise".
AP
