Russian police launch preliminary inquiry into Alexey Navalny’s hospitalization

Transit police are conducting a preliminary inquiry into opposition politician Alexey Navalny’s hospitalization in Omsk on August 20, Russia’s Interior Ministry announced on Thursday. The agency says officers have already inspected his hospital room, seized “more than 100 items with potential evidentiary value,” and analyzed video surveillance data.

“Currently, we have found no high-potency or narcotic substances,” the Interior Ministry said in a press release on August 27. “We are now carrying out more than 20 different forensic, biological, and physicochemical examinations.”

State prosecutors in Western Siberia also announced on Thursday that they launched an inquiry into Navalny’s illness back on August 20, the day he was hospitalized.

What happened to Navalny?

Opposition politician and anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny was hospitalized in Omsk on August 20 after becoming violent ill aboard a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. He has been in a coma ever since. Navalny’s family and aides believe he was poisoned. Doctors in Berlin, where he was transferred after nearly two days of treatment in Omsk, suspect that Navalny was poisoned with a cholinesterase inhibitor. European leaders have called on the Russian authorities to investigate Navalny’s mysterious illness. The Kremlin has said it’s premature to make this a police matter.