The former president of the European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday said he had been poisoned during a visit to Russia in late October -- three days before the former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko was fatally poisoned in London.
Luzius Wildhaber, who retired last month as Europe's most senior judge, told a Swiss newspaper that he had fallen violently ill after a three-day trip to Moscow.
The judge has been the subject of persistent criticism from Russia for upholding a series of complaints by Chechen human rights campaigners.
Russian officials yesterday dismissed Wildhaber's allegations as laughable.
Valery Zorkin, the chairman of Russia's constitutional court, said the allegations were perplexing. The judge seemed fine during his three-day visit, he said.
"As far as I remember, food poisoning took place in reality ... it was merely food poisoning," he said.
Russian officials also queried why the judge had gone public with his claims now, months after his alleged poisoning.
In the interview, Wildhaber said he had decided to send his blood samples to a forensic laboratory after reading about the death in London of Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned on Nov. 1 with a massive dose of radioactive polonium-210. But when he asked for his blood samples, he was told the Swiss clinic had destroyed them.
"I wanted to solve the puzzle," Wildhaber said.
Yesterday a spokesman for the European Court of Human Rights said there was "nothing to indicate that the cause of Mr Wildhaber's illness -- septicaemia caused by staphylococcal infection -- was suspicious."
"The fact that Mr Wildhaber fell ill shortly after returning from Russia provides no basis for the speculation in the media," he said.
But officials conceded yesterday that the Kremlin had been annoyed by a series of judgments by the European Court of Human Rights and regarded it as pathologically anti-Russian and biased.
The court has condemned Russian human rights abuses in Chechnya and ruled against complaints of discrimination by ethnic Russians in the Baltics.
But an autumn 2002 ruling appears to have especially incensed Moscow. The court upheld the appeal against extradition of a group of 13 Chechens wanted by Russia who had fled to Georgia.
The 70-year-old judge retired on Jan. 18. He was unavailable for comment yesterday.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese