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Opposition figure Navalny gets foreign travel passport for medical treatment abroad

The Migration Service has issued a foreign travel passport to Alexei Navalny, who received a corrosive burn of the right eye as a result of an attack on him at the end of April

MOSCOW, May 4. /TASS/. Russia's Federal Migration Service has issued a foreign travel passport to Russia's leading oppositionist Alexei Navalny, who received a corrosive burn of the right eye as a result of an attack on him at the end of April.

Navalny tweeted the news on his blog.

"Just recall they didn't issue the (foreign travel) passport for the past five years," he wrote. "But now it's a fact: I came over there and received it. Now I can go for examination and treatment for a clinic specializing in treatment of eye burns."

He also said he had received advice to take a course of treatment in a Western clinic.

An unknown man splashed the brilliant green antiseptic onto his face on April 27. After that Navalny was taken to hospital where physicians diagnosed the corrosive burn of the right eye, saying it had lost 80% of eyesight as a result.

Navalny tweeted earlier he hoped to take a course of treatment in Switzerland or Spain.

In the meantime, Vadim Kobzev, a lawyer defending Navalny told TASS the Federal Service for the Penitentiaries had warned Navalny the ban on his trips outside of Russia remained in effect in spite of th issuance of a new foreign travel passport to him.

"I received a phone call from a lady who is the director of the punishments inspection where Alexei Navalny reports regularly and she said the prohibition for him to leave the Russian territory stayed in effect," Kobzev said. "She claims a suspended jail term meant the person it was awarded to cannot go abroad."