BERLIN, September 11. /TASS/. A delegation of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) visited the Charite hospital in Berlin and was handed the results of blogger Alexei Navalny’s tests, who, according to Germany’s version, had been poisoned by a nerve agent of the Novichok family, Der Spiegel magazine said on Friday.
According to the weekly, the OPCW has been involved in the probe. Der Spiegel reported that the OPCW delegation visited Charite at the weekend, where they were handed the blogger’s blood and urine samples for further investigation.
The magazine says that Bruno Kahl, the president of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND), said at a closed-door meeting that Navalny had been allegedly exposed to a "harder" form of Novichok.
Navalny case
Navalny was rushed to a local hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk on August 20 after collapsing on the Tomsk-Moscow flight. He fell into a coma and was put on a ventilator in the intensive care unit. On August 22, he was airlifted to Berlin and admitted to the Charite hospital.
Last week, the German government claimed that having examined Navalny’s test samples the Bundeswehr’s toxicologists had come to a conclusion that the blogger had been affected by a toxic agent of the Novichok family. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia stayed ready for comprehensive cooperation with Germany. He pointed out that no poisonous substances had been detected in Navalny’s system prior to his transfer to Berlin.
On September 7, the Charite doctors said that Navalny had been taken out of induced coma and was being weaned off the ventilator.