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Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in ill health following a new suspected poisoning and is back in a punishment cell after several days in regular confinement, a spokesman said Wednesday.
Anna Veduta, vice president of Navalny’s Washington-based Anti-Corruption Foundation, told The Associated Press that Navalny, 46, fell ill last Friday when he was released from a punishment cell and placed in a conventional cell. He has lost about 18 kilos (eight kilograms) in the last 15 days. On Monday, Navalny wrote on Twitter, he was put back in the punishment cell for another 15-day term.
An ambulance was called early Saturday for acute abdominal pain but Navalny did not receive a diagnosis, one of his lawyers, Vadim Kobzev, wrote on Twitter after visiting him in prison.
“We believe he was slowly given a low-dose poison” in pills given without identification, Veduta said.
A video documentary about Navalny, directed by Canadian Daniel Roher, won an Oscar last month. The documentary describes Navalny’s career against official corruption, his near-fatal poisoning with a nerve agent in 2020 blamed on the Kremlin, his five-month recovery in Germany and his return to Moscow in 2021, where he was detained.
He was later sentenced to two and a half years in prison and last year was found guilty of another charge and given a further nine years.
Navalny has faced constant pressure from Russian authorities, and has been in and out of a small punishment cell. He was allowed to write letters or have his lawyer visit him occasionally.
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