Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin offered legal assistance to Alexander Murakhovsky, the chief physician at the Omsk Emergency Hospital No. 1, after Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny blamed the medical facility for malpractice, Prigozhin's Concord group said on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th October, 2020) Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin offered legal assistance to Alexander Murakhovsky, the chief physician at the Omsk Emergency Hospital No. 1, after Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny blamed the medical facility for malpractice, Prigozhin's Concord group said on Thursday.
In early October, Navalny told Der Spiegel that Omsk doctors failed to provide him with adequate medical care, saying that the hospital's chief physician is "worse than secret agents who kill people." According to the opposition figure, Murakhovsky knew that Navalny was poisoned but continued to publicly blame his condition on metabolic disbalance.
According to a letter to Murakhovsky that the Concord group published on VKontakte social network, the hospital's doctors had saved the life of "repeatedly convicted blogger" Navalny "thanks to their professionalism and responsible attitude to their work" but were subsequently subjected to "groundless criticism and accusations of serious violations."
"As a result, some of your colleagues were forced to leave their job. Within the context, I ask you to accept gratuitously my assistance in the legal protection of your and your colleagues' honor, dignity and business reputation," the letter said.
The businessman said his lawyers were ready to file a class action lawsuit on behalf of the doctors and "recover compensation for moral harm from the slanderers."
Relations between Prigozhin and Navalny became tense after the latter's Anti-Corruption Foundation published an investigation alleging that one of the businessman's companies supplied Moscow schools with low-quality food. Prigozhin denied owing the company and filed two claims for 5 million rubles ($64,800) each, against Navalny and his ally, Lyubov Sobol, over defamation.
When Navalny was transferred from Omsk to the Berlin-based Charite hospital for further treatment, Prigozhin wired 1 million rubles ($13,000) to the clinic to cover the costs, but the payment was returned. The Concord group linked the refund to the fact that the businessman was under sanctions.
