Russian rights lawyer claims mercury poisoning
Posted
French police have opened an inquiry into claims that prominent Russian human rights lawyer Karinna Moskalenko may have been poisoned.
Ms Moskalenko says she fell ill, complaining of headaches, nausea, and watering eyes, after earlier finding a quantity of what looked like the poisonous metal mercury inside her car in the French city of Strasbourg.
Ms Moskalenko is probably Russia's best known human rights lawyer.
Her international protection centre in Moscow has earned the formidable reputation for taking on the Russian state at the European court of human rights in Strasbourg.
Now she says she will no longer attend the trial of those accused of murdering journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya.
The French authorities say they are taking her complaint very seriously.
- BBC
