Published October 13,2023
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The Paris prosecutor's office is investigating a possible poison attack on the Russian TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, who has become famous for her criticism of the Ukraine war and now lives in exile in France.
The journalist called emergency services on Thursday afternoon because she suddenly felt sick after leaving her house and feared poisoning, the prosecutor's office said on Friday. She had asked to be taken to hospital.
Initial investigations and checks by the criminal investigation department were under way, prosecutors said.
"We were afraid for Marina Ovsyannikova, and the hypothesis of poisoning was raised and not ruled out," said Reporters Without Borders Secretary-General Christophe Deloire.
Deloire, however, said Ovsyannikova herself did not raise the possibility that she had been poisoned, contrary to the statement from authorities.
"We can attest to this since we were with her all day," Deloire said in a post to social media.
The organization had smuggled the television journalist out of Russia shortly before the start of a trial against her about a year ago.
A Russian court sentenced Ovsyannikova earlier this month to eight and a half years in prison. A court in Moscow found her guilty in absentia of allegedly spreading false news about the Russian army.
Ovsyannikova, who worked as an editor for Russian state television, drew international attention shortly after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine when she jumped into the middle of a live news broadcast and held up an anti-war protest poster in March 2022.
After staging the protest, Ovsyannikova, now 45, worked for the German newspaper Welt, among others, but then returned to Russia and protested against the war again.
In October 2022, her lawyer announced that she had left her home country for the European Union for good.
