Politics

Russian doctors permit Navalny’s transfer to Germany for treatment

(Update 2: adds info, re-leads, changes headline, adds news that doctors will allow transfer)

Moscow, Aug 21 (efe-epa).- Doctors treating Russia’s most prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny for suspected poisoning on Friday gave permission for the Kremlin-critic to be transferred to Germany for specialist treatment.

The U-turn came a day after Navalny, 44, was first admitted to hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk, where he remains in a coma in intensive care after taking ill on a flight.

The hospital’s deputy director Anatoly Kalinichenko told local reporters: “The patient’s condition is stable and in view of the family’s request to authorize his transfer, we have decided at this time that we do not oppose his transfer to the hospital center indicated by his relatives.”

Kalinichenko earlier said that medics had found no traces of poison in urine or blood samples taken from Navalny.

Navalny’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh, who was accompanying the opposition figurehead when he fell ill, tweeted: “Negotiations on the transportation of Alexey got off the ground.

“There is a chance that Navalny will now be able to be transported. It is a pity that it took the doctors so long to make this decision.

“The plane is waiting in the morning, the documents were also ready at the same time.”

An air ambulance, reportedly organized by the NGO Cinema for Peace, had already left Nuremberg, Germany, in the early hours to evacuate Navalny for treatment in Berlin, Bild newspaper said.

Yarmysh had earlier argued that it was deadly dangerous for him to remain in Omsk hospital in his current condition without equipment or a diagnosis.

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