4:31am UK, Wednesday October 15, 2008

French police are investigating claims that a Russian lawyer was the target of a poisoning attempt in Strasbourg.

Karina Moskalenko believes the poison was intended as a warning

Karina Moskalenko had been due to travel to Moscow to represent the family of murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya at the beginning of the trial of three men linked to her killing.

The lawyer, who has battled the Russian state at the European Court of Human Rights, found poisonous mercury in her car in the French city.

She believes it may have been intended as a warning to her. She and members of her family were treated for nausea and headaches but their lives are not thought to be at risk.

She told Ekho Moskvy radio station: “People do not put mercury in your car to improve your health.”

Exposure to high levels of mercury can damage the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, immune and nervous systems and can sometimes lead to death.

Strasbourg assistant prosecutor Claude Palpacuer said an investigation had been opened.

Other outspoken critics of the Kremlin have been poisoned in recent years.

Ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko died in London in November 2006 after being exposed to the radioactive isotope polonium-210.

Two years ealier, Politkovskaya claimed she had been poisoned while flying to Beslan to cover the school hostage crisis.

The journalist, whose reports on Russia’s breakaway Chechnya region detailing rights abuses angered the Kremlin, was shot dead outside her Moscow apartment in 2006.

Politkovskaya, whose reports on Russia’s breakaway Chechnya region detailing rights abuses angered the Kremlin, was shot dead outside her Moscow apartment in 2006.

Two Chechen brothers, Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, are charged with conducting surveillance on Politkovskaya, while former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov is accused of providing technical help.

All three say they are innocent.

A court is expected to decide on whether the public and media will be allowed to observe the trial, which is being held in a Moscow military court because one of the defendants used to be a law enforcement officer.

Defence lawyer Murat Musayev said: “If there is a jury, the trial will be fair and that means there will be an acquittal.

“The case the prosecution has sent to court is a shameful disgrace. We are sure that the prosecutors will try to make the trial closed to the public to cover up this disgrace, but we hope the court will not do this.”

Politkovskaya’s supporters say the main culprits will not be in the dock: a third Makhmudov brother, Rustam, who prosecutors suspect of shooting Politkovskaya, is on the run, and police have not found who ordered the murder.

Politkovskaya reported corruption and rights abuses during fighting in Chechnya where Moscow has launched two wars against separatists since 1994. The Russian military has denied the charges of systematic abuse.

Her murder is cited by Kremlin critics as a symbol of what they say has been an erosion of democratic freedoms under former President Vladimir Putin.

Mr Putin, now Russia’s prime minister, has denied any Kremlin link to the killing and ordered a thorough investigation.