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A LEADING Russian human rights lawyer is in a French hospital suffering from suspected mercury poisoning, the lawyer and one of her colleagues said today.

Karinna Moskalenko said that she and members of her family were taken ill in France and that a large quantity of "a substance similar to mercury" was found in her car by police.

"I feel worse and worse. My children also feel bad," Ms Moskalenko said.

In a statement posted on the official website of jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of Moskalenko`s clients, the lawyer said French police had opened an inquiry for "attempted poisoning".

Police in the French city of Strasbourg, where Ms Moskalenko frequently travels because of her work with the European Court of Human Rights, could not immediately be contacted to confirm the report.

Ms Moskalenko is suffering from "headaches, nausea and watery eyes", said Anna Stavitskaya, one of her colleagues.

"This appears to have been an attempt at intimidation" linked to the trial on the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Ms Stavitskaya said.

Ms Moskalenko was due to appear in court in Moscow tomorrow for a preliminary hearing ahead of the trial, representing the family of Politkovskaya who was shot dead outside her home in Moscow in 2006.

As well as being a lawyer for Khodorkovsky and Politkovskaya`s family, Moskalenko has taken a leading role in bringing cases involving abuses in Chechnya and in Russian prisons to the European Court of Human Rights.