Plane carrying comatose Kremlin dissident lands in Germany

Berlin: A plane carrying Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who is in a coma after a suspected poisoning, touched down early Saturday in Berlin, where he will be treated in the German capital's main hospital.

Navalny's spokeswoman and a representative of the NGO that arranged the flight confirmed that the plane had landed. Navalny is in Berlin, Jaka Bizilj, of the German organisation Cinema For Peace, told The Associated Press.

Navalny, a 44-year-old politician and corruption investigator who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics, was admitted to an intensive care unit in the Siberian city of Omsk on Thursday. His supporters believe that tea he drank was laced with poison and that the Kremlin is behind both his illness and the delay in transferring him to a top German hospital.

He was allowed to be transported to Germany only after much wrangling that his supporters denounced as a ploy by authorities to stall until any poison in his system would be no longer traceable.

He was flown in to Berlin on a plane organized by supporters that was equipped with advanced medical equipment and accompanied by German medical specialists.

When German specialists arrived aboard a plane equipped with advanced medical equipment Friday morning at his family's behest, Navalny's physicians in Omsk initially said he was too unstable to move.

Navalny's supporters denounced that as a ploy by authorities to stall until any poison in his system would no longer be traceable. The Omsk medical team relented only after a charity that had organized the medevac plane revealed that the German doctors examined the politician and said he was fit to be transported.

Deputy chief doctor of the Omsk hospital Anatoly Kalinichenko then told reporters that Navalny's condition had stabilized and that physicians didn't mind transferring the politician, given that his relatives were willing to take on the risks.

The Kremlin denied that resistance to the transfer was political, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that it was purely a medical decision. However, the reversal came as international pressure on Russia's leadership mounted.

It would not be the first time a prominent, outspoken Russian was targeted in such a way or the first time the Kremlin was accused of being behind it. On Thursday, leaders of France and Germany said the two countries were ready to offer Navalny and his family any and all assistance and insisted on an investigation into what happened.

The most prominent member of Russia's opposition, Navalny campaigned to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election but was barred from running. Since then, he has been promoting opposition candidates in regional elections, challenging members of the ruling party, United Russia.

His Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level. But he had to shut the foundation last month after a financially devastating lawsuit from a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.

Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to the hospital after the plane made an emergency landing.

His team made arrangements to transfer him to Charit , a clinic in Berlin that has a history of treating famous foreign leaders and dissidents.