A report issued by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), dated on October 6, has failed to identify the poison weapon which Alexei Navalny and his supporters claim was used to attack him in a Tomsk hotel on August 20.
Instead, the OPCW claims to have found "
biomarkers" of Navalny's metabolic disorder which
may have been caused by an unidentified chemical poison. According to a leading British organophosphate chemist,
these "biomarkers" may not have been caused by a crime.
"Biomarkers is the wrong term. Biomarkers means metabolites or other compounds which are not the parent nerve agent compound.
The vagueness could mean anything," the expert, who has requested anonymity, concludes. "As always,
we need the compound name, but the labs are indicating that somehow they knew they were not identifying a metabolite. Somehow the Germans and the two other labs knew that the compound they identified were not metabolites, they were the parent novel compound. How could they know this?"
The OPCW report, which has been exceptionally delayed before public release, also acknowledges that it
did not investigate the Tomsk hotel water bottles which Navalny and his associates have claimed to be the murder weapon. The OPCW analysis
also ignored Navalny's clothing, which he and his associates have insisted to be additional evidence of the alleged assassination attempt.
"If this were expert evidence at the Old Bailey," a London criminal law source comments, "the defence would rise to say it is evidence of the victim's illness. It is not identification of the weapon. It's not evidence of a crime. So there is no case to answer here. The prosecution's case has failed and should be dismissed."
Comment: Though the conflict has been simmering for decades, the situation now seems to be developing into another Syria. All the same behind the scenes players are involved