Protests held over Navalny's suspected poisoning

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, one of Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics, lay in a coma Friday in a Siberian hospital, the victim of what his allies said appeared to be a poisoning engineered by the Kremlin.

Navalny's spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, told Echo Moskvy radio station that he must have consumed poison in tea he drank at an airport cafe before boarding a plane early Thursday.

On Thursday evening, activists in several Russian cities held protests in support of him.

In St. Petersburg and Moscow people gathered in the city centre and condemned the use of poison, some actively accusing Vladimir Putin of being behind the alleged attack.

Police detained several Navalny supporters in both cities.

Navalny's office has asked the hospital in Omsk, where he is being cared for, not to prevent him from being transported abroad for treatment.