Novak Djokovic believes he was 'poisoned' during 'political' detention in Australia

The tennis legend revealed he was "very sick" after returning to Serbia from Melbourne and explained he discovered "a very high level of lead and mercury" in his body.

Djokovic was deported before the 2022 Australian Open having had his visa cancelled following a saga over him being unvaccinated against Covid-19.

The Serbian was held in a detention centre after arriving in Melbourne despite being given a medical exemption to enter Australia without having had a vaccine.

The former world No 1 won a court case to quash the initial ruling for his travel visa to be cancelled by the Australian Border Force (ABF).

However, Djokovic was forced to leave the country after Immigration Minister Alex Hawke's decision to revoke his visa for a second time was upheld in court.

In an interview with GQ Magazine, Djokovic shed light on the conditions he faced in the detention facility.

"I had a paper with like a hundred items: from toothbrush, toothpaste, water, food, whatever," the 37-year-old divulged. "And I had to choose, tick the certain boxes, and each of these items carries a certain amount of points, and I had 60 points in total of what I was allowed to receive.

"So I did that 59 or 60 points, and I gave it to them. Twenty minutes later I come back and they say, we made a mistake: you don't have 60, you have 30. So I was like, You must be kidding me.

"A lot of the athletes who were doing a quarantine for like 40 days before were also locked in the room. But the difference is that obviously they were not in kind of a jail room, and I was.

"And then when I won the case, I was free. I mean free if you call this a freedom. Honestly, I was in a rented house and I was followed by police everywhere I went, and I had the helicopter hovering around the centre court where I was training.

"I was not allowed to access the locker room, main locker room. So they had to find an alternative locker room for me to change and take a shower and get me out of the site. So I was kind of like a fugitive there."

The 24-time Grand Slam winner went on to make the shocking revelation that he had been poisoned with metals from food he ate at the detention hotel.

"I had some health issues. And I realised that in that hotel in Melbourne I was fed some food that poisoned me," the Djokovic said.

"Well, I had some discoveries when I came back to Serbia. I never told this to anybody publicly, but discoveries that I was - I had a really high level of heavy metal. Heavy metal. I had the lead, a very high level of lead and mercury. That's the only way (that it came from food)."

"Yeah, very sick. It was like the flu, just a simple flu. But when it was days after that a simple flu took me down so much. I had that (treatment from an emergency medical team) several times and then I had to do toxicology [tests]."

Djokovic also set the record straight about his deportation as he cited being regarded as a "public threat" and "a hero" to anti-vaccination sentiment as the real reasons.

"That's the actual reason why I was deported from Australia," he explained. "That's what the three federal judges said in the end. Their sentence is that they are not in a position to question the discretionary right of the [immigration] minister.

"It was so political. It had nothing really to do with the vaccine or Covid or anything else. It's just political. The politicians could not stand me being there. For them, I think, it was less damage to deport me than to keep me there.

"And still even today, 99 per cent of the people don't know why I have been deported from Australia. On what basis. People think that I've been deported from Australia because I haven't taken the vaccine. That I was unvaccinated and I tried to kind of force my way into Australia, which is completely untrue."

The world No 7 added: "My stance is exactly the same today as it was a few years ago. I'm not pro-vaccine. I'm not anti-vax. I am pro-freedom to choose what is right for you and your body.

"So when somebody takes away my right to choose what I should be taking for my body, I don't think that's correct."

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