Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said on Wednesday that he was denied access to hospital treatment by prison officials after falling ill, which his team said was an attempt to kill him.
Navalny, the most prominent opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said he had flu-like symptoms including a fever but was being held in a punishment cell at a maximum-security prison outside Moscow.
He also asked during Wednesday’s court hearing that it be postponed due to illness.
“I was not hospitalized even though I asked for this,” Navalny was quoted as saying by the team during the hearing, adding that prison officials also refused to give him basic medicine.
Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, told AFP that the judge granted the suspension.
For the past two years, the 46-year-old has been detained outside Vladimir, a city about 230 kilometers (145 miles) east of Moscow, after being accused of embezzlement, a decision Navalny denounced as an attempt to silence him.
A lawyer by training, Navalny has filed several lawsuits against prison officials, claiming they have violated his constitutional rights.
Earlier this week, Navalny said he shared a cell with someone with the flu, accusing officials of using the prisoner as a “biological weapon” to infect him.
Authorities have also placed “mentally ill people” in nearby cells who have been “yelling at night”, Navalny said.
Yulia Navalnaya’s husband has accused staff at the IK-6 prison of “torturing” him.
“Are you human?” he said in a post on Instagram.
Navalny’s team claims that the Kremlin wants Navalny to die in prison.
“Putin is still trying to kill Navalny but in a calmer and slower way compared to Novichok poisoning,” the team said on the Telegram messaging app.
Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, a Soviet-made nerve agent, during a trip to Siberia in 2020. He barely survived, and accused Putin of being behind the attack.
In an open letter, hundreds of Russian doctors called on the authorities to stop “torturing” Navalny and provide him with adequate treatment.
“The refusal of representatives of the Federal Prison Service to provide Alexei with the necessary drugs poses a direct threat to the life of Russian citizen Alexei Navalny,” the letter said.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price tweeted on Wednesday: “We echo the concerns of more than 170 Russian doctors who are calling for an end to the persecution of Navalny and providing him with all appropriate medical care.”