Khaberni - In a joint statement released on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, the UK, Sweden, France, Germany, and the Netherlands accused the Russian authorities of being responsible for the death of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, confirming that laboratory analyses of samples from his body conclusively proved he had been poisoned with a deadly toxin.
The five countries stated that the test results showed the presence of "epibatidine", a toxin known to be associated with South American poison dart frogs and not naturally found in Russia, considering this conclusion as reinforcing their belief that Navalny was killed while in detention in a Russian prison.
The statement added that Moscow's repeated disregard for the provisions of international law and the obligations stipulated in the Chemical Weapons Convention had become "clear", emphasizing that the recent findings necessitate Russia to be held accountable for its repeated violations, including those under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions.
Direct Accusation
For her part, the widow of the Russian opposition leader, Yulia Navalnaya, affirmed during her participation in the conference in Munich, that the available data now conclusively prove that Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind his killing.
The British Foreign Ministry reported that it had informed the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons of Russia's use of this poison, confirming that the international community is called upon to take practical steps to ensure accountability and prevent impunity.
The statement comes ahead of the second anniversary of Navalny's death, the Kremlin's most prominent opponent, at a time when European calls are intensifying to tighten diplomatic and legal pressures on Moscow over what it describes as systematic violations of international law.
In March 2022, the Russian authorities sentenced Alexei Navalny to 9 years in prison on charges of "fraud", and subsequently, he was sentenced to an additional 19 years in prison.
In December 2023, his lawyers lost contact with him for about 3 weeks before learning that the Russian authorities had transferred him to a penal colony in the Arctic Circle. Less than two months later, he died while in detention there.
In a statement, the prison authorities of the Yamal region in the Arctic stated that on February 16, 2024, Navalny "felt ill after a walk and almost immediately lost consciousness", and that he subsequently died as a result.
