Yushchenko: I was poisoned at secret service lunch

Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko is sure he was poisoned by the government and today, for the first time, he pinpointed the time and place of his dioxin poisoning.

It took place during a lunch on September 5 with the head of the Ukrainian security service and his deputy, he said.

“That was the only place where no one from my team was present and no precautions were taken concerning the food,” he said in Kiev today. ”It was a project of political murder, prepared by the authorities.”

New tests indicate the level of dioxin poison in his blood of is more than 6,000 times higher than normal, according to the expert analysing the samples.

The concentration, about 100,000 units per gram of blood fat, was the second-highest recorded in human history, said Abraham Brouwer, professor of environmental toxicology at the Free University in Amsterdam, where blood samples taken last weekend in Vienna were sent for analysis.

A Ukrainian parliamentary commission that investigated Yushchenko’s mysterious illness in October said he had complained of pains after meeting security chief Ihor Smeshko and the deputy, Volodymyr Satsyuk, but it also listed other places he ate or drank that day.

Smeshko promised that the secret service would investigate.

Yushchenko said Ukrainian prosecutors were looking into the case and said he was confident the official culprits would be punished.

“I have no doubt that within several days or weeks, this path will lead to the authorities, to specific people representing the government, who administered the poison, who was involved, from whom the poison was procured,” he said. “Who blessed it on different levels of government?”

Speaking on other subjects, Yushchenko voiced hope that if he wins the presidential re-run on St Stephen's Day, he would make efforts to turn a new page in relations with Russia, which heavily backed his rival, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.

He warned that Yanukovych his opponent was planning ”provocations” that could jeopardise the election.

“There is not a 100% guarantee that the election will take place,” he said in the capital, Kiev. “I know of provocations being prepared in the eastern regions.”

Yushchenko did not elaborate on what might occur in the eastern, Russian-speaking region of Ukraine, where rival Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych has strong support.

Yushchenko has been working in recent days to expand his base of support from western parts of the country, where Ukrainian nationalism is strong, to the eastern areas.

The two men face off again later this month, a re-run ordered by the Supreme Court following the fraud-marred November 21 run-off election.