A lack of explanations from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) persists about conflicting dates in its draft report about a technical expert mission to Germany for the Alexey Navalny case, Russian permanent representative to the organization, Alexander Shulgin, said on Friday
THE HAGUE (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th July, 2021) A lack of explanations from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) persists about conflicting dates in its draft report about a technical expert mission to Germany for the Alexey Navalny case, Russian permanent representative to the organization, Alexander Shulgin, said on Friday.
The initial OPCW report on Navalny stated that Germany requested technical assistance from the organization on August 20, 2020, the very first day when the Russian opposition figure fell ill. The mistake was spotted and Russia demanded explanations from the OPCW in early July.
"We have not received any comprehensible and probative explanations. All of them are confined to the German side's confirmation that 'there was a technical mistake.' I will say directly that this sounds unconvincing to us. A range of circumstances, including what was mentioned above, stimulates us to be more vigilant, especially in such a sensitive issue. It is interesting that the OPCW technical secretariat has kept silent all this time," Shulgin said.
Navalny was hospitalized in the Siberian city of Omsk on August 20 of last year after he fell ill on a domestic flight. Local doctors found no signs of poisoning in his samples. Two days later, the activist was flown to the Charite hospital in Berlin for further treatment. Navalny was discharged from the hospital a month later.
The German government claimed to have evidence of Navalny's poisoning with a nerve agent from the Novichok group. Moscow insists that Berlin present the biological materials to corroborate the alleged poisoning.
