Navalny was poisoned in hotel room and not at airport, claims his team

Traces of the Novichok chemical agent that was allegedly used to poison Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been found on water bottles from the hotel room where he stayed before leaving for the airport on August 20. Navalny's team said that the politician was poisoned at his hotel room in the Siberian city of Tomsk and not at the airport as suspected earlier. 

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The team informed that they collected everything they could from the hotel room on the day he fell sick and sent it to Germany for investigation. The Garman laboratory found traces of Novichok agent on bottles collected from Navalny's room. Three more laboratories that took tests from Navalny confirmed that he was poisoned by Novichok. The team posted a video on Instagram where they can be seen inspecting the room and packing things could have been used in poisoning Navalny. 

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"This is a bottle from a room in a Tomsk hotel where Navalny himself and our entire film crew stayed. There was no particular hope of finding anything like that. But since it was absolutely clear to us that Navalny was not 'slightly ill,' not 'overheated,' and Rafaelka could not help here, it was decided to take everything that could be hypothetically useful in some way and hand it over to doctors in Germany. The fact that the case would not be investigated in Russia was also quite obvious," Navalny's team said on Instagram. 

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Navalny's poisoning

Alexei Navalny, a staunch critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, fell sick under mysterious circumstances on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Aug 20. He was rushed to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk after the plane made an emergency landing. Navalny was put into an artificial coma and was moved to Germany after much debate over his transfer. Navalny had remained in an induced coma until September 7 when doctors treating him informed that his condition has improved. 

Doctors in Russia had denied any poison traces in Navalny's blood but when he reached Germany it was confirmed that he was poisoned. Russia has dismissed allegations of a state-sponsored attack on Navalny and has demanded more evidence in order to start a criminal investigation into the case.  

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