A TOP German chef has knocked back a claim by former US first lady Laura Bush that she was poisoned by his food during Germany’s 2006 G8 summit.
Mrs Bush writes in her just-published memoirs that she felt “deathly ill” after a meal at the Grand Hotel in the Baltic Sea resort town of Heiligendamm.
A US delegation member was left deaf in one ear after the summit, she adds, while another still has difficulty walking.
Grand Hotel restaurant chef Steffen Duckhorn heard rumours during the summit that Mrs Bush and other US delegation members were unwell and contacted Germany’s federal police.
"There was nothing there," he told Der Spiegelmagazine.
For the entire duration of the summit his kitchen was filled with toxicologists who took samples of all dishes and tested them in an onsite lab – before, during and after every meal.
Mr Duckhorn used security-checked local suppliers for dishes such as herring tartar and schnitzel with asparagus.
“We would have been the first to drop dead,” he told Der Spiegel, “as we try everything ourselves first”. Mrs Bush claims the outbreak of illness put the FBI on high alert. In her book she reminds readers that, prior to the summit, “there had been several high-profile poisonings in and around Europe – including one with suspected nuclear material”.
"The overriding fear was that terrorists had gotten control of a dangerous substance and planted it at the resort," she writes in Spoken from the Heart.
But Mr Duckhorn dismisses the claim, pointing out that he only cooked for heads of state and their spouses, not other delegation members.
The Americans brought their own food, he said, including MMs embossed with an image of the White House.
The former first lady says the poisoning was never conclusively proven and that the delegation assumes they contracted a virus.
Her husband also fell ill in Heiligendamm and ate only chicken broth provided by Mr Duckhorn. When the chef later encountered the former president, he recalls Mr Bush saying to him: “Hey man, good food!”