Poisoning By Mercury
On 14 October 2008, her husband had discovered “about 10 little pellets of liquid metal” in their car, "on the floor of both the driver and the passenger sides of the vehicle". Toxicologists identified the metal as poisonous mercury, which Moskalenko claimed was an apparent effort to poison her family and prevent her from appearing in court in Moscow. She said she became sick two days before she was scheduled to appear at a preliminary hearing in Moscow on the murder of journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya.
On 22 October 2008, it was reported that French police investigating the case managed to find the previous owner, who gave a statement that he broke a mercury barometer in the car shortly before selling it to Moskalenko. Peter Lavelle, a journalist for Russia Today stated that Moskalenko admits she had not cleaned the car since she bought it from the antiques dealer in August 2008. The revelation came ten days after the initial report, which saw Kremlin critics and some media outlets, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, Lev Ponomaryov, the Washington Post, and the The Globe and Mail, accusing Russian security services, and Vladimir Putin himself, of orchestrating the poisoning in an attempt to intimidate or eliminate the vocal critic of the Kremlin.
Read more about this topic: Karinna Moskalenko
Famous quotes containing the words poisoning and/or mercury:
“It is beyond a doubt that during the sixteenth century, and the years immediately preceding and following it, poisoning had been brought to a pitch of perfection which remains unknown to modern chemistry, but which is indisputably proved by history. Italy, the cradle of modern science, was at that time, the inventor and mistress of these secrets, many of which are lost.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)