The Siberian hospital treating Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is refusing to allow him to be moved to another better-equipped facility where he can get better care after a suspected poisoning attempt.
According to Kira Yarmysh, his spokeswoman, the head doctor said that his condition was unstable and that his relatives’ desire to move him cannot be justified. "The ban on transporting Navalny is an attempt on his life being carried out right now by doctors and the deceitful authorities that have authorised it," Yarmysh wrote on social media. According to Yarmysh, permission to move Navalny was withheld at the last minute. His family wishes to transport him to Germany for treatment.
Alexander Murakhovsky, the hospital's head doctor, said that many legal questions would need to be resolved before Navalny could be handed over to European doctors.
Navalny felt unwell on a flight back to Moscow from Tomsk, a city in Siberia, and was taken to a hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk. The tea he drank on the flight was allegedly laced with poison.
Navalny was allegedly poisoned last year after an administrative arrest. Navalny is a lawyer and an anti-corruption activist. Navalny's Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level.
