A survivor of the Salisbury Novichok poisonings warned Alexei Navalny’s widow that she “could be next.”
Charlie Rowley’s partner Dawn Sturgess was killed by the deadly nerve agent in 2018 and left partially paralyzed.
He now fears Yulia Navalnaya could be Putin’s next victim and has warned her to “watch your back”.
Her intervention comes after Navalnaya posted a video in which she insisted that Putin had used Novichok to murder her imprisoned husband after she “could not break him.”
The body of late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was handed over to his mother today after a nine-day wait.
Salisbury Novichok poisoning survivor Charlie Rowley warned Alexei Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya that she ‘could be next’
Yulia Navalnaya recently posted a video in which she insisted that Putin had used Novichok to murder her imprisoned husband after she “could not break him.”
Rowley’s partner Dawn Sturgess (pictured) was unknowingly poisoned with Novichok, leading to her death in 2018.
Alexei Navalny, pictured in court in 2021, died suddenly on February 16 after a walk, according to Russia. His shocking death at age 47 has led critics to blame Putin for his direct involvement.
Rowley, 50, said Mirror The news of Navalny’s death sent him back into PTSD and his worst nightmares.
He said that if he ever meets Yulia, he will be linked to her because he knows that Putin “destroys lives” because he destroyed his and his partner Dawn’s.
But I want to warn you to watch your back. Be very careful or she could be next,” he told the newspaper.
Rowley still lives in fear and said he could say unkind words about Putin but doesn’t want to.
He is still traumatized by the events surrounding the alleged attempted murder of former Russian military intelligence double agent Sergei Skripal, 68, in Salisbury.
In March 2018, both he and his daughter Yulia, then 33, were rushed to hospital in critical condition after coming into contact with Novichok, a deadly nerve agent invented by Soviet scientists during the Cold War.
Russian agents spied on Sergei and Yulia Skripal (pictured) five years before Salisbury novichok poisoning; both survived.
Mum-of-three Dawn Sturgess (left) and her partner Charlie Rowley (right) fell ill in the flat after she handled a perfume bottle containing poison. She died in hospital in Salisbury, Wiltshire, on 8 July 2018. Rowley was left seriously ill but recovered.
The counterfeit perfume box found by Rowley in June 2018
Both Russian suspects escaped after the attack. Russia claims they were just tourists visiting the tall spire of the famous cathedral.
They survived the alleged assassination attempt, but four months later, Rowley found Nina Ricci’s bottle of fake perfume in a charity shop bin containing the Novichok used by the Moscow hitmen in their initial botched assassination of the Skripals.
He gave it to his partner, Mrs Sturgess, who unknowingly sprayed it on his wrist.
The couple were admitted to hospital within hours and, tragically, Ms Sturgess, 44, died on July 8, 2018.
Rowley suffered multiple strokes and nerve damage and lost his home after the attack because the property was severely contaminated.
Recalling his ordeal of suffering, Rowley said he is sure Navalny would have suffered his “worst nightmare.”
He said the illness made him feel like he was going through “hell.”
Yesterday, supporters of Navalny, 47, celebrated after his body was finally returned to his family after a nine-day wait.
Navalny at a hearing by videoconference from the Kharp penal colony on January 11, 2024
Yulia Navalnaya, wife of the late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, leaves the Europa building in Brussels on February 19, three days after her husband’s death.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a presentation in Kazan, February 22, 2024.
Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny and his wife Yulia Navalnaya in September 2020
Navalnaya said in her speech that Putin’s decision not to hand over the body was “satanism”
Russia previously said it would not hand over Navalny’s body to his family for 14 days while investigators look into the confusing circumstances of his death, a move critics said suggested foul play.
Navalny was previously poisoned with Novichok while investigating Russian corruption in 2020.
It is not yet known what caused Navalny’s death, and Russia initially claimed he died of “sudden death syndrome” after a walk on February 16.
Paramedics reportedly came to try to rehabilitate him without success.
Navalny, serving a 19-year sentence on “extremism” charges, had recently been moved from his former prison in central Russia’s Vladimir region to a chilling “special regime” penal colony above the Arctic Circle.
Navalny was last seen via video link during a court hearing.
Yulia Navalnaya, who has vowed to continue her late husband’s anti-corruption work, said in a new video directly accusing Putin of responsibility for Navalny’s death: “What Putin is doing now is hate. No, it’s not even hate, It’s satanism.’
‘What will you do with his corpse? How far will you go to mock the man you murdered? She continued.
The Kremlin has denied accusations of its involvement in Navalny’s death and called the West’s reaction “hysterical.”
Putin, who never said Navalny’s name in public, has not commented on the death of his harshest critic.
Following a private meeting with US President Joe Biden on Thursday, Yulia Navalnaya spoke candidly about her husband’s death in a video shared on YouTube.