Oman Abramovic was not poisoned but was injured when a tear gas canister exploded next to him as he was leaving the peace talks, Turkish media claimed. The owner of Chelsea was transported to the Turkish capital Ankara to be secretly treated in a public hospital after the March 3 incident in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, the reports said. He claimed earlier this week that Mr Abramovich and two Ukrainian officials had been out of sight for several hours after the suspected poisoning attack. Investigative journalist Christo Grozev later linked it to a World War I chemical agent and said a team of experts agreed that Chloropicrin, or the low-dose Novichok, was used in the plot. Russia has dismissed the reports, originally published by the Wall Street Journal, as part of an “information war”, and Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak has dismissed them as speculative “conspiracy theories”.
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The mystery deepened on Thursday when the Haberturk news website and the CNNTurk television channel reported that the Chelsea owner was injured by a tear gas canister as he was leaving a meeting with three other people in Kyiv. The reports were widely published in the Spanish national and local media after being echoed by the respected Efe news agency. The Spanish news website El Confidencial reported: “Abramovich was not poisoned, he was drunk with tear gas, according to Turkish media.” Explaining in detail how the billionaire oligarch was taken to Ankara’s central public hospital for treatment, he said: from a gas explosion next to him as he left a meeting, although they do not reveal their source. “The tycoon was immediately transported by plane to Ankara. His presence was not made public and the record of his visit was kept secret. “Haberturk says it is not known with certainty whether the gas explosion was accidental or caused with the intention of undermining the negotiations.”
