I tasted poison on Yushchenko's lips, says his wife
By Julius Strauss in Moscow
(Filed: 11/12/2004)
The wife of Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian opposition leader whose face was badly disfigured by a mystery illness during the recent election campaign, said yesterday she tasted poison on his lips as she kissed him the evening before he fell ill.
"I thought there was something different about my husband when he came home that night, because he has never taken any medicine, he's a very healthy man," Kateryna Yushchenko said in an interview from the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, for ABC's Good Morning America.
*
Changing faces: Viktor Yushchenko before and after the recent presidential elections
"I tasted some medicine on his breath, on his lips. And I asked him about it. He brushed it away, saying there is nothing."
The next day Mr Yushchenko - who checked into a private clinic yesterday for further tests - became very ill. He was later taken to hospital in Vienna. The family was told that he could have died if treatment had been delayed a few more hours.
After intense treatment his internal swelling and ulcers began to recede but he developed back pain so severe that he was fitted with a morphine drip into his spine.
Mr Yushchenko first fell ill in September. Despite being in great pain, he resumed campaigning later in the month with a badly disfigured face.
He returned to the hospital later in September for further treatment.
Mr Yushchenko has accused the Ukrainian authorities of trying to poison him in the run-up to a presidential vote marred by fraud. Ukraine's supreme court voided the outcome of the vote, which Mr Yushchenko lost to the prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych.
The opposition has widely hinted that Mr Yushchenko was poisoned by the authorities, possibly during a dinner with senior members of the security services, in an attempt to kill or incapacitate him ahead of the election.
The government poured scorn on the notion, circulating rumours that the unsightly purple swelling was the result of his eating bad sushi or drinking too much. Yesterday Mr Yushchenko arrived at a private Vienna hospital in a convoy of three cars and surrounded by bodyguards for more tests.
He told reporters at the Rudolfinerhaus that he expected to stay there until Monday.
Dr Nikolai Korpan, the Rudolfinerhaus physician who oversaw Mr Yushchenko's earlier treatment, said this week that doctors were working on three poisoning theories, including one involving dioxin.
"The results are partly available. We are in the process of verifying them," he said yesterday.
Recently Mr Yushchenko said he was increasingly convinced that he was poisoned and that evidence would soon surface to support the claim.
If proof does emerge, and suspicion falls on the Ukrainian authorities, it could help rally support for Mr Yushchenko ahead of a fresh round of voting on Dec 26.
He told reporters in Vienna that he was confident of winning the presidential election and that, in reality, he had already done so.
