Germany and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) made advances in joint work on the case of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny, the government's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said on Monday
BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th September, 2020) Germany and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) made advances in joint work on the case of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny, the government's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said on Monday.
"We have been in close contact with the OPCW since the moment when we received the undeniable results of the special laboratory of the Bundeswehr [Germany's military]. And now it has moved one step forward," Seibert said.
The German Foreign Ministry has said that the OPCW took samples from Navalny for investigation on its own in accordance with Paragraph VIII 38 (e) of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which envisions technical assistance to OPCW member states.
Navalny fell ill during a domestic Russian flight on August 20. He 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, the man was flown to the Berlin-based Charite hospital for further treatment. In early September, the German government said that doctors had found traces of a nerve agent from the Novichok group in his system. Moscow responded by pointing to the lack of evidence in Berlin's claims and noting that Russian doctors had found no toxic substances in Navalny. Earlier on Monday, Berlin said that French and Swedish laboratories confirmed that the opposition leader had been poisoned by a nerve agent of the Novichok group.
