Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters
A friend of jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny says he is in a “critical” situation after possibly being poisoned in prison.
An ambulance was dispatched last week to the IK-6 penal colony where Navalny is being held. “Our theory is that they are gradually killing him, using slow-acting poison which is applied through food,” Navalny ally Ruslan Shaveddinov told The Guardian on Friday.
“His situation is critical, we are all very concerned,” Shaveddinov said. “We understand that the situation must have been very bad if an ambulance was called.” Prison authorities are also allegedly refusing to send Navalny to the hospital and are instead “doing everything possible to isolate him.”