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Mother of sailor denies being injected tranquilizers |
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August 28, 2000
MURMANSK, Russia (AP) - A woman whose son was killed when a Russian nuclear submarine sank has denied that she was forcibly sedated when she criticized a top official over the government's bungled attempts to rescue the crew. Video images broadcast around the world showed Nadezhda Tylik crying and shouting at First Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov when he met with relatives of the crew shortly after the Kursk submarine sank Aug. 12. When Tylik resisted sitting down, a woman was seen standing behind her with a syringe. Some media reports suggested that Tylik was sedated forcibly to shut her up when her attack on Klebanov got too heated. The incident was portrayed by some critics as a throwback to the Soviet era, when dissent was sometimes suppressed with forced medical treatment. But Tylik, whose 25-year-old son Sergei was among the 118 sailors killed aboard the Kursk, dismissed the reports as "a lie." She said Saturday that she was injected with medication she regularly took for a heart problem. "Nobody gave me any tranquilizers, as those people have been writing," Tylik said in a telephone interview from Vidyayevo, where the Kursk was based and relatives have gathered since the tragedy. "I don't want such reports to be circulated; they don't give such injections here." Tylik said the injection was made on her doctor's recommendation and at the request of her husband, who was by her side throughout the meeting with Klebanov. She said that after being given the injection, she had some hot tea and returned to the meeting room five minutes later to listen to the rest of Klebanov's remarks. "I was quite in a normal, adequate state," she said. Though clearly shaken with grief, Tylik spoke firmly and coherently, her voice quivering only once, when she said her son's name. Scores of relatives of the crew sought medical treatment as Russian efforts to reach the Kursk, lying 108 meters (350 feet) below the surface, repeatedly failed. Several women fainted when a mourning service for the sailors was held Thursday. The Kursk was shattered by a massive explosion and sank in the Barents Sea, off Russia's northern coast, during naval exercises Aug. 12. Norwegian divers who finally reached the stricken submarine determined that the hull was flooded and all 118 people aboard were dead. |
