According to the lawyer, Kremlin opponent Navalny became ill and emaciated in the penal camp

Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, who was imprisoned in Russia, is seriously ill again, according to his lawyer. Last weekend, an ambulance had to be called to the prison camp because of the severe stomach pain at night, Vadim Kobsev writes on Twitter on Tuesday. “An unknown disease that nobody treats,” he added. The 46-year-old Navalny, who already looked quite emaciated on previous video recordings, has now lost another eight kilograms in body weight in about two weeks. The prison administration does not pass on the medicines that Navalny’s mother sends.

Kobsev continued that he did not rule out that Navalny, who narrowly survived an assassination attempt with the neurotoxin “Novichok” in 2020, would now be made sick again. He therefore demands a toxicological and radiological examination of his client. “That may sound like nonsense and paranoia to others, but not to Navalny na Novichok,” the lawyer said. Navalny himself blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the attack on him. The Kremlin rejected this.

For more than two years, Navalny has been under extremely harsh prison conditions in a penal camp about 160 miles northeast of Moscow. He was convicted of alleged fraud by a Russian court, but the prominent opponent of Putin is internationally regarded as a political prisoner. In recent months he was repeatedly transferred to a small solitary cell, where he repeatedly complained about health problems. (sda/dpa)