German police investigate mysterious illness of Russian activist and journalist

German police have launched an investigation into the sudden and unexplained illness of a Russian opposition activist and journalist who participated in a conference in Berlin in April, police in Berlin confirmed to Radio Free Europe (RSE) on 21 May.

The investigation was launched after reports of health problems following the end of the 29-30 April dissidents rally, the police confirmed to RFE/RL an earlier report by the German newspaper Die Welt.

The meeting was organised by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former exiled oligarch and Kremlin critic.

One of the participants, a journalist who recently left Russia, experienced unspecified symptoms during the event and said they may have started earlier.

She was treated at the Charite University Hospital in Berlin, where Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was also treated for poisoning in August 2020, AFP reports.

Another participant, Natalia Arno, Director of the Free Russia Foundation in the USA, felt the symptoms when she travelled to Prague from a meeting in Berlin.

She also revealed that her hotel room was open, the agency reports. The next day, she travelled to the US, where she has been living for the past ten years. There, she turned to the hospital and the authorities for help.

Arno took to Facebook this week to describe the symptoms, severe pain and numbness. She wrote that the first unusual symptoms appeared before she arrived in Prague, adding that she was feeling better but that these symptoms had not completely disappeared.

Several opponents of the Kremlin have been poisoned abroad and in Russia in recent years.

Moscow denies the responsibility of its secret services. Meanwhile, European laboratories have confirmed that Navalny was poisoned with the Soviet-era Novichok poison./RSE/