Chechen premier leaves hospital despite ill health

MOSCOW -- Chechnya's prime minister checked out of the hospital Tuesday despite doctor's advice, three days after first complaining of stomach pains that a member of his security said were caused by deliberate poisoning, news agencies reported.

Anatoly Popov was expected to be back at work in Chechnya today, his administration in the Chechen capital was quoted as telling the Interfax news agency.

Meanwhile, Interfax quoted an unidentified security aide to Popov as saying that "there is no doubt that he was poisoned."

Popov was hospitalized in Chechnya on Saturday evening after complaining of pain following a ceremony celebrating the official opening of a new gas pipeline.

His illness raised concerns that he might have been poisoned, and he was rushed Monday to the elite Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow.

The hospital's chief doctor, Alexander Nikolayev, was quoted by Interfax on Monday as saying that there was no evidence of deliberate poisoning and that Popov would recover fully in two to three days.

Early Tuesday, however, Russian news agencies reported that Popov's condition had worsened overnight and that doctors were providing intensive treatment and insisting he should remain in the hospital for at least three days.

Officials in Chechnya's Moscow-backed government are a frequent target for rebels, and tension is running high ahead of Sunday's presidential election in the war-ravaged region. But past rebel attacks have almost exclusively involved guns and explosives.

Popov, 43, was named to the prime minister's post in February. He is temporarily serving as Chechnya's acting president while his boss, Akhmad Kadyrov, is running in the war-ravaged region's Oct. 5 presidential election.

Politics in Chechnya are murky, and some Russian media and analysts expressed doubt that Popov's illness was the result of simple food poisoning.