Russian government brushes off accusations Navalny poisoned

MOSCOW (AP) — The Kremlin on Tuesday brushed off allegations that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is in a coma in a German hospital, was poisoned and said there were no grounds for a criminal investigation because the politician’s condition may have been triggered by other causes.

The insistence by the government that Navalny wasn’t necessarily poisoned — comments amplified by Russian doctors — came a day after German doctors said tests indicated that he was poisoned and elicited outrage from Navalny’s allies, who say the Kremlin was behind the illness of its most prominent critic.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the accusations, saying they “absolutely cannot be true and are rather an empty noise.”

“We do not intend to take it seriously,” Peskov said.

Peskov saw no grounds for launching a criminal investigation into Navalny’s condition, saying that it could have been triggered by a variety of causes, and determining one should come first.

“If a substance (that caused the condition) is found, and if it is determined that it is poisoning, then there will be a reason for an investigation,” Peskov said.

Navalny, a politician and corruption investigator who is one of Putin’s fiercest critics, fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to a hospital in the city of Omsk after the plane made an emergency landing.

Over the weekend he was transferred to the Charité hospital in Berlin, where doctors on Monday said they have found indications of “cholinesterase inhibitors” in his system.

Cholinesterase inhibitors act by blocking the breakdown of a key chemical in the body, acetycholine, that transmits signals between nerve cells. Navalny is being treated with the antidote atropine.

Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, has been visiting her husband daily and made no comment to reporters as she arrived Tuesday.

Chancellor Angela Merkel personally offered Germany’s help in treating Navalny and has called for a full Russian investigation.

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