German police probing suspected poisoning of Russian exiles

BERLIN – An inquiry has been opened into the possible poisoning of exiled Russians after a journalist and an activist reported health problems following a Berlin meeting of dissidents, German police said on Sunday.

“An investigation has been opened. The probe is ongoing,” a Berlin police spokesman told Agence France-Presse, confirming a report in Die Welt newspaper.

Russian investigative media outlet Agentstvo last week said two participants who attended an April 29-30 meeting of Russian dissidents in Berlin experienced health problems.

The meeting was organised by exiled former oligarch-turned-Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

One participant, identified as a journalist who had recently left Russia, experienced unspecified symptoms during the event and said they may have started earlier.

The report added that the journalist went to the Charite University Hospital in Berlin – where opposition figure Alexei Navalny was treated after being poisoned in August 2020.

The second participant mentioned was Ms Natalia Arno, director of non-governmental organisation Free Russia Foundation in the United States, where she has lived for 10 years after having had to leave Russia.

Ms Arno had attended the Berlin meeting of dissidents before travelling to Prague, where she experienced symptoms and discovered that her hotel room had been opened, Agentstvo reported.

Leaving the next day for the US, she contacted a hospital there as well as the authorities.

Ms Arno discussed her problems – “sharp pain” and “numbness” – on Facebook this week, saying the first “strange symptoms” appeared before she arrived in Prague. She said that she still had symptoms but felt better.

In recent years, several poison attacks have been carried out abroad and in Russia against Kremlin opponents.

Moscow denies its secret services were responsible.

European laboratories confirmed Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, a Soviet-made nerve agent. AFP