A suspect in sending an envelope containing poison to the American president was detained in the United States. The dangerous package was intercepted by Secret Service officers. A similar letter was previously sent to Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker. The topic will be continued by Polina Romanova.

The deadly package was intercepted in Washington when a routine check revealed traces of a mysterious substance on an envelope addressed to Barack Obama. The system for inspecting letters to officials was created in the United States after mailing envelopes containing anthrax in 2001. Thanks to the efforts of the intelligence services, the dangerous package did not even reach the threshold of the presidential residence, said White House spokesman Jim Carney.

“A letter with a suspicious substance was indeed sent to the President, it was intercepted by the Secret Service and examined in a remote, secure location. Additional checks are currently being conducted. The FBI is already investigating this case and is developing a number of versions,” Carney said.

Experts found ricin in the envelope, an extremely dangerous and cheap poison. The substance is extracted from castor bean seeds, from which castor oil is also prepared. You can make poison in any kitchen. If it enters the human body, it causes nausea, breathing problems and death. There is no antidote. However, ricin must be ingested or injected into the bloodstream to have a lethal effect, so mailing it in the form of an envelope containing powder is not too dangerous. Most likely, the attacker did not even try to kill the president, says Andrey Soldatov, editor-in-chief of the website Agentura.Ru.

“Barack Obama was not injured, no one was injured at all, but nevertheless, we managed to make a rather loud statement. Now some group will take responsibility, or somehow an individual will do this. The statement, by the way, has already been made. Very strong I doubt that anyone really hoped to kill the president. I just think that the goal was different,” Soldatov is sure.

Law enforcement officials say they have not yet found a connection between the poison letters and the Boston bombings. At the same time, Senator Claire McCaskill said that among the suspects is a certain person who regularly sends letters to American legislators. The most famous case of the use of ricin as a weapon is the murder of Bulgarian dissident and journalist Georgi Markov in 1978. He died from an injection with an umbrella in which a syringe with poison was hidden. The killer was never found.

Polina Romanova, Daniil Rotshtein

"I doubt anyone really hoped to kill Obama"