Russia's poisoning 'without a poison'

"He complained about fatigue, and red blotches began to appear on his skin. His internal organs began collapsing one by one. Then he lost almost all his hair." This was how a witness described the mysterious illness which struck down 53 year old Yuri Shchekochikhin, a member of the Russian Duma or parliament, in June 2003.

Within 16 days of falling ill Shchekochikhin was dead. And both colleagues and family suspect he was murdered. The strange illness of Yuri Shchekochikhin is one of a series of deaths investigated in Russia by File on 4 in the wake of the dramatic radiation poisoning of Russian exile Alexander Litvinenko in London last November.

The common factor in these deaths is that in each case people close to the victim suspect that either the state or one of its security arms was involved. Family frustrated As a journalist Yuri Shchekochikhin was one of Russia's top corruption investigators.

His colleagues say family members were told by medical staff that he may have died from "an allergic reaction". But more than three years after his death, his family are said still to be trying to obtain medical records and tissue samples to allow an independent scientific analysis to be done.

A friend of Shchekochikhin, Kirill Kabanov, who is a former member of the Federal Security Service, the FSB, was travelling with him shortly before his illness. Kabanov says that among the targets of Shchekochikhin's investigations were very senior people in the FSB and in other state agencies. He recalls that with no official help, friends of the dead man mounted an independent assessment of the facts they knew.

"We had our own investigation of Yuri's death," says Kirill Kabanov. And I personally had to use some of my old contacts from the security services.

And the specialist whom I contacted said that with 90% certainty Yuri's case was a poisoning and most likely he was poisoned with thallium." (Thallium was initially suspected by doctors treating Alexander Litvinenko in London before further tests pinpointed the radioactive substance polonium-210 as the poison.) Asked why doctors should give other reasons for the death and why samples should be unobtainable, Kirill Kabanov again draws on his secret service knowledge.

"Yuri Schekochikhin's treatment and his post-mortem took place at the Central Clinical Hospital. This is the most important clinic in Russia and it's tightly controlled by the Russian Federal Security Service because it treats top-ranking Russian officials."

So could a cover-up have taken place? "Recently," says Kabanov darkly, "very few people in Russia find the courage to tell the truth."

BBC