Poison speculation continues
2004-12-24 19:57
Kiev - Ukraine's opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko suggested on Friday that the dioxin with which he was poisoned several months ago may have come from outside the country.
"Today there is lots of both direct and indirect proof of how this poison got into Ukraine and to my table," he said at a news conference on the last day allowed for official campaigning before a rerun election being held on Sunday.
The opposition leader declined to comment on assertions from several of his allies that Russian intelligence agencies had a hand in his poisoning in September, which struck him weeks before a first-round presidential election, taking him off the campaign trail and disfiguring his face.
"I don't want to create new myths. There is a prosecutor general, where there are people whom I trust.
"I want the courts to put the final point in this affair, which has been tragic for me," Yushcheko said.
Yushchenko has previously voiced suspicions that he ingested the poison during a dinner with the chief of Ukraine's SBU intelligence services, Ihor Smeshko, and his deputy on September 5.
The following day he fell ill and his condition steadily deteriorated during the next five days until on September 10 he was rushed to the Rudolfinerhaus clinic in Vienna.
The clinic doctors confirmed earlier in December that Yushchenko's illness resulted from swallowing a massive dose of dioxin.