Russia's Gaidar ill in hospital with mystery ailment
Source: Reuters
(Releads, updates with new quotes in paras 2 & 16) By Guy Faulconbridge MOSCOW, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Russian politician Yegor Gaidar, architect of his country's market reforms, was being treated in a Moscow hospital on Wednesday for a mystery illness that one of his associates said may have been caused by poisoning. "A poisoning, an attempted murder: this is precisely the version that needs to be examined," Anatoly Chubais, a former colleague of Gaidar, said on NTV television. Chubais, who now heads Russia's state electricity monopoly, said someone may have stood to gain if Gaidar had suffered the same fate as Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian former spy who died from poisoning in London this month. Doctors at one point feared Gaidar, 50, a former acting prime minister who is now an influential figure in the liberal opposition, could die after he collapsed during a visit to Ireland to promote his new book, "Death of the Empire." "He lost consciousness for three hours and was taken to intensive care for a long time where doctors were fearful for his life," Gaidar's daughter Maria, an opposition activist, told Reuters. "He is in Moscow and doctors are trying to come up with a diagnosis but they can't find one. His condition is satisfactory and he is speaking but he looks very bad -- he looks pale and thin." She said doctors were trying to diagnose "rather strange symptoms" including a nose bleed and loss of consciousness, but she did not want to comment on suggestions he had been poisoned. Yegor Gaidar's programme of shock therapy under President Boris Yeltsin helped dismantle Communist economic management but also angered millions whose savings were devalued. Gaidar has voiced restrained criticism of President Vladimir Putin's economic policies. Now head of the Moscow-based Institute for the Economy in Transition, he fell ill a day after Litvinenko died in London from radiation poisoning. Litvinenko, a critic of the Kremlin, left a letter blaming Putin for his death. The Kremlin denies any involvement. LITVINENKO LINK Chubais drew a parallel between Gaidar's illness, Litvinenko's death and Anna Politkovskya, an outspoken investigative reporter who was shot dead in Moscow in October. "Yegor Gaidar on 24 November was in the balance between life and death. Could this be simply some sort of natural illness? According to what the most professional doctors, who have first-hand knowledge of the situation, say -- no," Chubais said. Chubais, the target of an assassination attempt in 2005, did not believe Gaidar was targeted by agents working for Putin. But he said: "For me there is no doubt that the deathly Politkovskaya-Litvinenko-Gaidar chain, which by a miracle was not completed, would have been extremely attractive for the supporters of an unconstitutional, forceful change of power in Russia." Alex Goldfarb, a Litvinenko associate in London, said Andrei Lugovoy, a Russian businessman who met Litvinenko the day before he fell ill, worked as Gaidar's head of security in the early 1990s. Lugovoy has said he had nothing to do with Litvinenko's death. Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, on a visit to Brussels, said he was unaware of Gaidar case but that he would look into it. A spokesman for Ireland's foreign ministry said Gaidar had been taken to hospital and later discharged. He said he was on the road to recovery and added: "We're not aware of anything untoward."
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