TheDailyTelegraph
I
received death threats, says doctor who denied that
Ukrainian leader was poisoned By Bojan Pancevski in
Vienna (Filed:
27/03/2005)
A senior doctor ousted from
the Vienna clinic where Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian
president, was treated for dioxin poisoning, claims that
his life was threatened after he cast doubt on the
diagnosis.
Dr Lothar Wicke, the former
clinical director at the Rudolfinerhaus, said that the
clinic came under intense pressure from Mr Yushchenko's
entourage to diagnose poisoning, even when there was no
apparent evidence.
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Dr Lothar Wicke was asked to
withdraw his claim that Viktor Yushchenko was not
poisoned |
Dr Wicke told The Telegraph
that, as the crime writer Agatha Christie liked to point
out, there was "no murder without a corpse, and no
poisoning without poison".
Mr Yushchenko, 50, first
claimed that he had been poisoned in September last
year. He suffered severe stomach pains and disfiguring
facial lesions while campaigning in Ukraine's bitterly
fought presidential election against Viktor Yanukovych,
the rival pro-Kremlin candidate.
At the time, doctors
believed that his symptoms may have been caused by
food-poisoning or a mysterious virus. On September 9, Mr
Yushchenko checked into the prestigious clinic in
Austria. Initially, it could not confirm the cause but
in December, it backed the poison theory.
Speculation that the
politician was the victim of a dirty tricks campaign
helped him to victory in the elections on December
26.
Dr Wicke remains
uncomfortable about the role played by the
Rudolfinerhaus in the drama. "The first two times Mr
Yushchenko was examined, there was no evidence of
poisoning whatsoever," Dr Wicke, 64, said. Yet, to his
dismay, persistent leaks from the clinic suggested that
the politician had indeed been poisoned.
Dr Wicke said: "I was
directly involved, and I can tell you that the Institute
of Forensic Medicine in Vienna did not find any traces
of poisonous agents in his blood. If there is no poison,
there cannot be poisoning and there was no trace of it
whatsoever."
He made his feelings public
at the end of September, shortly before Mr Yushchenko
made a second trip to Vienna for further tests. Dr Wicke
told reporters that a "medically forged diagnosis" had
been circulated by someone "not permanently employed in
this clinic". This was taken to refer to Nikolai Korpan,
a Ukrainian-born surgeon who had been treating the
politician in Vienna.
Three days later, Dr Wicke
received a written request from Dr Michael Zimpfer, the
president of the clinic's supervisory board, to retract
his remarks.
Dr Wicke marked the memo
with the word "Acknowledged". It was after this that a
man speaking accented English rang Dr Wicke and
introduced himself as "a friend from the Ukraine". He
said the man told him to "take care. Your life is in
danger". Dr Wicke and his family were then put under
24-hour police guard.
Behind the scenes, Mr
Yushchenko's repeated visits to the clinic had caused
turmoil, said Dr Wicke, who had worked there for 25
years and was awarded the Cross of Honour First Class
for Science and Art by the late Austrian president,
Thomas Klestil, last year.
At one point, members of the
politician's entourage tussled with Austrian police who
were trying to confiscate Mr Yushchenko's medical
records at the behest of a Ukrainian parliamentary
commission investigating the case.
Dr Wicke is now suing the
Rudolfinerhaus for substantial damages. He claims that
he was forced out of his job for refusing to go along
with the poisoning diagnosis.
Dr Wicke declined to speak
at length about the dismissal case but asked if his
dismissal was linked to the Yushchenko case, he said: "I
will restrain from commenting but, given the facts, you
will certainly not find it difficult to make your own
conclusion.
"The official announcement
said I left of my own free will but that wasn't the
case."
He also declined to comment
on speculation that Mr Yushchenko was actually suffering
from stress and that he was treated by American doctors.
It is also thought that the clinic in Vienna might have
been used as a smokescreen.
"It was announced during
Yushchenko's third visit to Vienna that he had been
poisoned but I had been removed from the case by then. I
don't know what evidence was taken into consideration,"
Dr Wicke said.
Dr Korpan said last week
that several international laboratories had confirmed
that Mr Yuschenko had been poisoned. "There is a reason
why Dr Wicke disputed the poisoning diagnosis but it is
not a medical one. It will be revealed later," he said.
"I can only say that the whole thing is worth writing a
book about."
The Rudolfinerhaus refused
to comment before Dr Wicke's case is heard on
Tuesday.
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