Philipp Jacoby, the only German doctor treating Alexei Navalny for alleged poisoning to have testified publicly, has given a new press interview to alter the interpretation of the evidence he gave last week.
"People close to Navalny", he now says, "warned me about John Helmer".
In two telephone interviews on September 6, Jacoby revealed that the planning of his medical evacuation flight to Russia began in Shannon, Ireland, on August 19, 2020, the day
before Navalny fell ill on a flight between Tomsk and Moscow on the morning of August 20, 2020.
Jacoby also testified that Maria
Pevchikh, one of Navalny's staff, had been the first to mention Novichok when they were talking together at the intensive care unit of Omsk Emergency Hospital Number 1, where Navalny was being treated, after his flight had been diverted for an emergency landing at Omsk. Later, Jacoby added,
Pevchikh and Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny's wife, had asked him — and he had agreed with them — to conceal their backpack containing water bottles from Navalny's hotel room in Tomsk on to the German medevac aircraft, making it appear to be his own luggage and thereby avoid Russian detection at Omsk airport.
In a fresh interview for almost ninety minutes on Thursday evening, September 9, conducted in German, Jacoby
did not claim his earlier interviews had been misquoted or misinterpreted. Instead, he revealed how close he has been to Navalnaya, corresponding by email with her after Navalny arrived in Germany for treatment
.
Jacoby also issued the first personal attack by a German doctor or German government official on the medical expertise and truthfulness of the Russian doctors treating Navalny at Omsk. "
The doctors in Omsk told us a cock and bull story [
die Ärzte in Omsk haben mir einen Bären aufgebunden]
," Jacoby now says, claiming they didn't tell him the full truth. He adds that handwritten records of Navalny's clinical tests he was shown by the Omsk hospital doctors "were unprofessional and could easily have been faked." Jacoby did not acknowledge the papers he was shown were handwritten in English because the Omsk Hospital doctors believed Jacoby could not understand computer printouts in Russian.
Comment: Folding under pressure, Evergrande could be a lynchpin to further disaster in China's economy: See also: Chinese regulators summon Evergrande property developer execs, warn debt poses systemic risk