Navalny ‘seriously ill,’ moved to prison hospital: attorney

Alexei Navalny’s lawyer said on Tuesday that the prominent Kremlin critic is “seriously ill” amid reports that he was transferred to a prison sick ward on Monday.

The Guardian reports that Olga Mikhailova, a lawyer for Navalny, said that members of his legal team saw him on Tuesday, saying he was “in rather bad condition.”

Navalny said in a note published on Monday that he had been coughing and had a temperature of 100.6 degrees. Other prisoners in his ward had already been treated for tuberculosis.

Navalny began a hunger strike last week in a bid to receive proper medical treatment, stating that he was experiencing pain in his back and legs while also losing sensation in parts of his body. He is currently being held in the IK-2 prison facility.

“He has lost a lot of weight, plus he has a strong cough and a temperature of 38.1 [Celsius],” Mikhailova said on the Echo of Moscow radio station. “This man is seriously ill. It’s a complete outrage that the IK-2 [prison] has driven him to this condition.”

Navalny survived a poisoning with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok last August after receiving treatment and recovering at a hospital in Germany. The poisoning drew international attention, with the European Union announcing last October that it would be issuing sanctions against six Russians and one organization believed to be connected to the poisoning.

Navalny is currently serving a 2 1/2 year sentence for embezzlement charges that he says are a form of retribution for his opposition to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said in March that Navalny health was “stable and satisfactory” after Navalny’s allies raised concerns for his health. The German hospital where he was treated for his poisoning, Charité-Universitätsmedizin, said at the time of his discharge that it was difficult to tell what the long-term effects of his poisoning would have on his health.