MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Siberian doctor who treated poisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny last year reappeared on Monday after being reported missing while on a hunting trip, Russian news agencies cited the regional government as saying.
A search was launched in the forests of the Omsk region, about 2,200 km (1,370 miles) east of Moscow, after physician Alexander Murakhovsky left a forest hunting base in an all-terrain vehicle on Friday.
Murakhovsky exited the forest himself and made contact with residents of the village of Basly, RIA news agency quoted the Omsk regional government as saying.
He was in “normal condition” though was being examined at Bolsheukovsky District Hospital as a precaution, RIA cited the authorities as saying.
Murakhovsky was head doctor at the hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk that treated Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, after he collapsed on a flight last year.
After tense negotiations with the authorities, Navalny was airlifted to Germany from Omsk for further treatment.
Laboratory tests in three European countries, confirmed by the global chemical weapons watchdog, established that Navalny had been poisoned with a Soviet-style Novichok nerve agent.
The Kremlin has repeatedly rejected any suggestion that Russian authorities tried to kill Navalny. Upon his return to Russia in February, he was jailed on what he said were trumped up charges.
(Writing by Polina Ivanova; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
