Doctors say Yushchenko was poisoned with dioxin, suspect foul play
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VIENNA (AFP) - Ukrainian opposition leader and presidential hopeful Viktor Yushchenko was the victim of dioxin poisoning, his doctor in Vienna has disclosed, adding that he suspected foul play.
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"There is no doubt about the fact that the disease has been caused by a case of poisoning by dioxin," said Dr Michael Zimpfer, the medical chief of Vienna's Rudolfinerhaus clinic on Saturday.
"We have found levels of dioxin in the body caused by oral ingestion," he told a news conference at the private clinic. "We suspect a cause triggered by a third party."
The findings follow three months of speculation about an ailment that struck Yushchenko on September 6, leaving him in pain and barely recognisable with a severely disfigured face as he tries to win the Ukraine's bitterly-contested presidency.
Zimpfer said tests on blood and tissue samples had revealed amounts of dioxin in Yushchenko's body that were "a thousand times above the normal levels you would find in blood and tissues."
Dioxin is the name of a group of closely related toxins that can cause cancer and death, and was used in the defoliant Agent Orange. It is known to cause a severe skin disease called chloracne and damage to the liver and nervous systems.
The 50-year-old Yushchenko was known for his good looks, but since he fell ill his face has been partially paralysed and pock-marked, and doctors have reported severe liver problems.
The pro-Western politician has repeatedly claimed that he was poisoned by political rivals, on Friday telling reporters: "The aim was to kill me."
Zimpfer however pointed out that it was up to the courts to decide whether he had been the victim of a murder plot, telling journalists: "Our diagnosis says poisoning. It is up to the legal authorities to decide whether it was deliberate."
The release of the medical findings comes two weeks before Yushchenko will again face Viktor Yanukovich, who has taken a leave of absence as prime minister, in a re-run of Ukraine's November 21 presidential elections.
The vote sparked the biggest crisis in the country's 13 years of independence before the supreme court invalidated the results, which handed victory to the pro-Russian Yanukovich, on the grounds of fraud.
Yushchenko is seen as the likely winner of the re-run set for December 26, and had been comfortably leading Yanukovich in the polls in September when he fell ill.
His political opponents dismissed his health crisis as a bad case of food poisoning, while Ukrainian public prosecutors said on October 22 that an investigation had found he was suffering from a fever caused by a virus that affected his liver.
