I was poisoned by Russians, human rights judge says
Pastor Dale Morgan
I was poisoned by Russians, human rights judge says*
· Legal chief fell violently ill after trip to Moscow
· Kremlin dismisses claims but had attacked court
Luke Harding in Moscow
Thursday February 1, 2007
The Guardian
The former president of the European court of human rights yesterday
claimed he was 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.
In an interview with the Neue Züricher Zeitung, Mr Wildhaber said he had
travelled to Russia to attend an international conference for
constitutional lawyers. He said that on the last day of his trip he had
gone on an excursion with another Swiss lawyer, Karl Eckstein, to the
historic city of Vladimir, 112 miles east of Moscow. The two men ate a
meal with officials.
Two days later, on his return to his home city of Basle, Mr Wildhaber
collapsed. Doctors diagnosed severe blood poisoning and said that when
an ambulance arrived at his house he was minutes from death. The judge
was forced to take a month off work from his job in Strasbourg.
"After everything that I have experienced at the European court I simply
have to take all possibilities into account," Mr Wildhaber said, adding
that he had been threatened by Russia in the past. "The Russian
government has repeatedly dubbed the court as Russia-phobic," he said.
Russian officials yesterday dismissed Mr Wildhaber's allegations as
laughable and said there was no evidence he had been poisoned on Russian
soil. Valery Zorkin, the chairman of Russia's constitutional court, said
the allegations were perplexing. The judge had 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."
Russian officials also queried why the judge had gone public with his
claims now, months after his alleged poisoning.
In the interview, Mr Wildhaber said he had decided to send his blood
samples to a forensic laboratory after reading about Litvinenko, who was
poisoned on November 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," he said.
Mr Eckstein had also fallen ill. The lawyer found himself sleeping "18
to 20 hours a day" after their joint excursion, the judge said. "I
suspect that - whatever it was - happened during our trip to Vladimir,"
Mr 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 court and regarded it as pathologically
anti-Russian and biased. The court has regularly condemned Russian human
rights abuses in Chechnya, and has 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 Neue Züricher Zeitung said Russia's ambassador to the Council of
Europe turned up in Mr Wildhaber's office and said that unless the men
were handed over within 24 hours Russia would blame the court for the
Moscow theatre siege when Chechen extremists took 850 people hostage.
"It was a vile form of blackmail," Mr Wildhaber told the paper.
The 70-year-old judge retired on January 18. He was unavailable for
comment yesterday.