Two days after a suspected poisoning, a hospital in Germany said extensive tests were being carried out.
Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who is in a coma after a suspected poisoning, arrived in Berlin on a Saturday for treatment by specialists at the German capital’s main hospital. “Navalny is in Berlin,” Jaka Bizilj, of the German organization that organized the flight, told The Associated Press. “He survived the flight and he’s stable.” After touching down shortly before 9 a.m. in an area of the capital’s Tegel airport used for government and military flights, Navalny was taken by ambulance to the downtown campus of Berlin’s Charite hospital. The hospital later said extensive tests were being carried out, and doctors would not comment on his illness or treatment until those were completed. Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, said on Twitter Saturday that the struggle for Alexey’s life and health is just beginning, but that with the flight to Berlin, the first step has at least been taken. Navalny, a politician and corruption investigator who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, fell ill on a flight to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to the hospital after the plane made an emergency landing.
