Russia rules out inquiry into Alexei Navalny ‘poisoning’

Kremlin says no basis for investigation into mystery surrounding collapse of activist

Luke Harding and agencies
Thu 27 Aug 2020 15.00 BST

Russia has said it does not intend to investigate the suspected poisoning of the opposition Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who is in a coma in a German hospital, saying there was no evidence of any crime.

The prosecutor general’s office said it saw no basis to open an inquiry after a preliminary investigation. Vladimir Putin’s press spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said there was little reason to act since a poisonous substance had not been discovered.

“Here, in this case, nothing has changed. We still, unfortunately, do not have an understanding of what caused the condition the patient is in now,” Peskov said, refusing to identify Navalny by name.

The Kremlin’s reluctance to open a meaningful investigation into Navalny’s apparent poisoning is hardly a surprise. On Tuesday Peskov dismissed accusations that Putin might be behind Navalny’s sudden illness as “empty noise”, “idle talk”, and not “serious”.

Navalny collapsed last week on a flight to Moscow after drinking a cup of tea at Tomsk airport. He was flown to Germany on Saturday and remains in a medically induced coma at Berlin’s Charité hospital.

-snip-