According to a legal professional who recently visited the prison, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has fallen critically ill while in prison.
According to the Guardian, the Kremlin critic said in a note published on Monday that he was coughing and had a temperature of 38.1C (100.6F). Several prisoners from his ward had already been treated in hospital for tuberculosis, Navalny wrote. Hours later, the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia reported he had been moved to a sick ward and tested for coronavirus, among other diseases.
“He has lost a lot of weight, plus he has a strong cough and a temperature of 38.1C,” Olga Mikhailova, the lawyer, said on the Echo of Moscow radio station. “This man is seriously ill. It’s a complete outrage that the IK-2 [prison] has driven him to this condition.”
Meanwhile, in a letter that was written by Navalny which was later published, he had said that his inmates had recently been taken to the hospital due to tuberculosis. He went on to say jokingly that if only he got the disease, it would help him to ignore the pain that his body was going through. Navalny is currently in prison on a two-year term on charges for embezzlement.
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