Chechnya prime minister 'was poisoned'

The condition of Chechnya’s prime minister took an unexpected turn for the worse today amid fears he had been deliberately poisoned.

Anatoly Popov’s temperature rose sharply, bringing a group of doctors to his bedside at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow.

The Interfax news agency quoted an unidentified security aide as saying: “There is no doubt that he was poisoned.”

Popov was rushed to hospital in Chechnya on Saturday evening after complaining of pain following a ceremony celebrating the official opening of a new gas pipeline.

He was flown to Moscow yesterday, but later in the day said he was feeling better and would return to Chechnya today. The chief doctor at the Central Clinical Hospital, Alexander Nikolayev, said there was no evidence of deliberate poisoning.

“His diagnosis is a toxic infection from food. There are no signs of deliberate food poisoning,”

Interfax quoted Nikolayev as saying yesterday. He said Popov’s condition was improving and that all signs of the illness would be gone in two to three days.

Officials in Chechnya’s Moscow-backed government are a frequent target for rebels, and tension is running high ahead of Sunday’s presidential election in the war-ravaged region.

Popov, 43, is temporarily serving as Chechnya’s acting president while his boss, Akhmad Kadyrov, is running in the war-ravaged region’s October 5 presidential election.