The British Foreign Office announced in a statement on February 14 that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny had died after being poisoned with a rare poison dart frog toxin.
The announcement came two years after Navalny died in a Siberian penal colony. Britain and other European countries, including France, Sweden and Germany, accused Russia of orchestrating the poisoning.
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Only the Russian government had the means, motive and opportunity to use this deadly toxin against Alexei Navalny, who is imprisoned in Russia.” She attended and spoke at the Munich Security Conference, which runs until February 15.
Mr. Cooper met with Mr. Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, in Germany and said, “Russia saw Mr. Navalny as a threat.” The Russian government does not send a delegation to Munich for the annual security and defense forum. Russia’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the poisoning allegations.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that tests on Navalny’s body were “consistent” with a deadly toxin called epibatidine found in the skin of Ecuadorian poison dart frogs. It said the samples found inside his body were “highly likely to have led to his death.”
