An investigation has been launched in Germany after a Russian journalist and activist who attended a conference in Berlin reported health problems that may have led to suspicion of poisoning, judicial police said on Sunday, quoted in the Welt am Sonntag weekly. AFP.

“Based on available information, a case has been opened,” a Berlin police spokesman told the weekly.

Two Russian women who fled the country allegedly poisoned themselves

This week, the Russian investigative publication “Agentstvo” published an investigation into the health problems of two participants in the rally of Russian dissidents on April 29 and 30 around businessman-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

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

The media added that the journalist appeared at Berlin’s La Charité hospital, where Russian opponent Oleksii Navalny, who suffered from a poisoning attempt in August 2020, was being treated.

The second participant is Natalia Arno, director of the non-governmental organization Free Russia Foundation in the USA, where she has been living for ten years after she had to leave Russia.

“Strange symptoms”

Natalia Arno was in Berlin at the end of April, from where she went to Prague. There, as reported by the Agency, she experienced some symptoms for the first time and also discovered that her hotel room had been searched.

Leaving the next day for the United States, she contacted the hospital and authorities there. Natalija Arno also posted on Facebook this week recalling the problems she was experiencing, “sharp pains” and “numbness”, saying that the first “strange symptoms” appeared before she arrived in Prague.

She added that she still has some symptoms but is feeling better.

In recent years, several poisonous attacks on opponents of the Russian government have been committed abroad and in Russia. Moscow denies any responsibility of its special services.

In the case of Oleksiy Navalny, European laboratories confirmed the use of a “Novachok” type poison developed by the USSR for military purposes. (Agerpress)