Third Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko (2005-2010) has said that 5% of dioxin remains in his blood.
“I have 5% of the dioxin [poison in my blood],” he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.
Yushchenko noted that he does not refuse to provide a blood sample,
as proposed by the Prosecutor General’s Office, but believes that this
analysis must be done by national and international experts.
He also said that he still had blood samples from 2005.
As reported, on September 5, 2004, Yuschenko, a presidential
candidate at the time, met with senior Ukrainian security officers,
following which he fell ill and on September 10 was hospitalized in
Vienna. Doctors said Yuschenko was poisoned with dioxin, and that the
poison had entered the patient’s system approximately five days before
he was hospitalized. A number of tests were carried out later. In late
May 2006, Yuschenko again tested positive for dioxin.
At the same time, lately Yuschenko has turned down prosecutors’
request to provide a blood sample as part of the inquiry into his
poisoning.
