Bilalov confirms being poisoned with mercury
MOSCOW. April 27 (Interfax) - Russian businessman Akhmed Bilalov has confirmed reports that he has had an abnormally high content of mercury detected in his body, and said he will take the matter to the police when he returns to Moscow from Germany, where he is taking treatment.
"Unfortunately, I must confirm the information that I've had an excessive content of mercury detected in my organism. I didn't want to disclose it before but, as the media have found it out, I have to confirm it," Bilalov told Interfax by phone on Saturday.
"I first felt bad in the middle of the autumn last year," he said. "The most unpleasant part of it is that, as was found out, I had been in contact with the source of the disease for quite a long time. My employees are also having examinations."
"At the moment I'm taking treatment in Germany. German doctors have prescribed me a course of treatment and are monitoring the dynamics. My condition is satisfactory," Bilalov said.
"I definitely wouldn't like to accuse anyone or think up theories about how the mercury ended up in my office in Moscow. I don't yet have any suspicions. When I'm back in Moscow, I'm planning to apply to law enforcement agencies so they can help me sort out this situation," he said.
Earlier on Saturday, the Russian Interior Ministry, which is investigating Bilalov's suspected complicity in alleged tax evasion by a travel agency, denied knowing anything about Bilalov's mercury poisoning.
"The Ministry of the Interior has not received any reports, statements or appeals either from him or from his lawyers," the ministry's press center told Interfax.
Previously, Russian website Gazeta.ru said, citing a medical lab in Bremen and a source in Bilalov's entourage, that German doctors had diagnosed the businessman with heavy metal, probably mercury, poisoning.
The source said mercury that was found in the office on Khlebny Pereulok street in central Moscow where Bilalov usually worked had been the source of the businessman's poisoning.
"The employees are also having examinations and planning to apply to law enforcement agencies," Gazeta.ru quoted the source as saying.