Germany Provided Moscow With No Information On Navalny In 8 Months - Russian Envoy To OPCW

Germany Provided Moscow With No Information on Navalny in 8 Months - Russian Envoy to OPCW

Russian Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Alexander Shulgin said on Tuesday that Moscow had not received any information from Germany, France and Sweden on the alleged poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny in Russia over the past eight months

PARIS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th April, 2021) Russian Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Alexander Shulgin said on Tuesday that Moscow had not received any information from Germany, France and Sweden on the alleged poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny in Russia over the past eight months.

Navalny fell ill on board a domestic flight on August 20. He was initially treated in the Siberian city of Omsk. Local doctors suggested metabolic malfunctions as the main diagnosis and said there were no traces of poison in his system. Two days later, he was flown to the Charite hospital in Berlin for further treatment. Soon, Berlin said that German experts found evidence of Navalny's poisoning with a nerve agent from the Novichok group.

Laboratories in France and Sweden, as well as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, backed the conclusion. Russia has repeatedly called on Western countries, including Germany, to present biological materials and samples they took from Navalny in August following his alleged poisoning.

"The claims need to be addressed not to Russia, but to other countries, to Germany, France and Sweden. For almost eight months we have not been able to get any information that has been requested from the [Russian] law enforcement agencies since August. According to the convention, ... Germany is supposed to be giving information on this particular incident to Russia and it is stopping us from being able to find out what the truth is," Shulgin said at the 25th session of the OPCW Conference of the States Parties.

According to the Russian official, these European countries are violating Articles 7 and 9 of the convention, which require the parties to offer legal assistance and to resolve any issues through dialogue and consultation.

In January, Navalny returned to Moscow from Berlin after receiving medical treatment for an alleged poisoning. The activist was arrested on arrival and referred to a court, which in February rescinded his suspended sentence in the 2014 Yves Rocher fraud case over multiple probation breaches and replaced it with a 3.5-year term behind bars. A Moscow city court reinstated the ruling but reduced the sentence to 2.5 years.