I find myself in a rather strange situation. On the one hand, the case of the attempt to kill me (it feels so strange to write that, and it sounds wild even to me) has not left newspaper headlines around the world, and it is being commented on endlessly by the Russian Foreign Ministry and all senior Russian officials.
On the other hand, there is no case. There never was, and still is no criminal case opened and no proper investigation.
With great difficulty, we obtained a document showing that the first refusal to open a criminal case was issued as early as September 18, when I was still in intensive care.
It seems that decision was later revoked. Then another refusal order was issued. In any case, the fact remains: no criminal case has ever been opened. There is no investigation. I still have not been officially recognized as a victim. I do not have a single document related to the case. Not even my own medical records.
The entire international side of the case is proceeding through the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and they are concerned only with the fact that Novichok was detected, something confirmed by three independent laboratories in three countries. The OPCW is not especially concerned with exactly who was poisoned or how. Not because they are bad, but because that is simply how the organization is structured (and Russia itself, incidentally, played an active role in creating it).
Nevertheless, after carefully studying similar cases from recent years, we realized that there is an international institution fully empowered to take up an investigation into the case. These are the so-called UN Special Rapporteurs.
For example, there is Agnès Callamard, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions. Her mandate is quite broad. She investigated, among other things, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. He was a journalist from Saudi Arabia. He entered his country’s consulate in Istanbul. There, he was killed by Saudi intelligence operatives, and his body was dismembered. At the time, both Turkey and Saudi Arabia responded to the Special Rapporteur’s inquiries as part of the investigation.
In my case, a UN Special Rapporteur can request the test results from Germany, and from Russia my clothing and medical records.
And in principle, a UN investigation should suit Russian officials perfectly well. In their press releases, they talk about some kind of “international investigation.” And what could be more “international” than this? So we decided to try this route. My French lawyer, William Bourdon (you may remember him from the Yves Rocher case), has appealed to the UN on my behalf. The investigation will be handled by Agnès Callamard, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, and Irene Khan, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression.
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