US House Foreign Affairs Leaders Call for Probe of Navalny Case

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th September, 2020) The top two lawmakers on the US House Foreign Affairs Committee in a letter on Tuesday urged President Donald Trump's administration to open a probe into the alleged poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny.

"We... formally request that the executive branch investigate whether Russia has used chemical weapons in violation of international law or has used lethal chemical weapons against its own nationals," panel chairman Eliot Engel and ranking member Michael McCaul said in the letter.

Last week, the German government said traces of a nerve agent from the Novichok group was detected in Navalny's system. Moscow said Russian doctors found no toxic substances before he was transported to Germany and that Berlin has provided no evidence to support its claims.

The congressmen also said the request, per US law, triggers a 60-day evaluation period. If the investigation determines chemical weapons were used a sanctions process would commence, the letter added.

The 44-year-old was initially treated in the Siberian city of Omsk, where the plane made an emergency landing. Two days later, once the doctors established he was fit for cross-border aerial transportation, Navalny was flown to the Charite hospital in Berlin for further treatment.

On Monday, Berlin's Charite hospital announced that the politician's condition has improved and he has been taken out of an induced coma.