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#20 - JRL 2007-27 - JRL Home
Nothing Suspicious About Wildhaber's Illness - European Court

MOSCOW. Feb 2 (Interfax) - There is nothing suspicious about the illness of the European Court of Human Rights' former president Luzius Wildhaber, the court's secretariat said in a statement.

There are no aspects that could arouse suspicions over the cause of Wildhaber's illness, the court said. The fact that the former president fell ill shortly after his return from Russia does not provide any grounds for speculation in the media, it said.

Following his October 25-29 visit to Russia, Wildhaber fell seriously ill in his house in Basel and was taken to hospital, the court said. He was diagnosed with severe blood poisoning caused by staphylococcal infection, it said.

Wildhaber, the European Court of Human Rights' senior judge from 1998 to 2006, retired on January 18, 2007, at the age of 70.

The Die Neue Zuericher Zeitung newspaper published Wildhaber's interview last Sunday, in which the court's former president said that he might have been poisoned during his trip to Russia.