THE mother of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was denied access to a morgue where his body was believed to be being kept after his death in an Arctic penal colony, as Navalny’s allies accused authorities of trying to hide evidence.
Navalny’s spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said the Investigative Committee, Russia’s top criminal investigation agency, told Lyudmila Navalnaya that the cause of her son’s death remained unknown and that the official inquiry had been extended.
“They lie, buy time for themselves and do not even hide it,” Yarmysh posted on X/Twitter.
Many world leaders blamed President Vladimir Putin and his government for Navalny’s death on Friday at the age of 47. The Kremlin has fiercely rejected the accusations. Navalny’s team said he was “murdered” and that officials’ refusal to hand over his body was part of a cover-up.
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov slammed what he described as “boorish” and “inadmissible” statements by Western leaders who held Putin responsible for Navalny’s death.
“Those statements can’t do any harm to the head of our state but they certainly aren’t becoming for those who make them,” Peskov said in a call with reporters.
Yarmysh said Navalny’s mother and his lawyers were not allowed into the morgue in Salekhard yesterday morning. The staff did not answer when they asked if the body was there, Yarmysh said.
Navalny ally Ivan Zhdanov denounced the authorities as “lackeys and liars”, saying: “It’s clear what they are doing now – covering up the traces of their crime.”
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya (below), yesterday vowed to continue his fight against the Kremlin. She accused Putin of killing her husband and vowed to punish him and other alleged perpetrators. She also slammed the authorities, for refusing to hand over Navalny’s body to his mother to cover up his alleged killing, and referred to his alleged earlier poisoning with a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.
Navalnaya said: “They are cowardly and meanly hiding his body, refusing to give it to his mother and lying miserably while waiting for the trace of another Novichok to disappear.”
She urged Russians to rally behind her “to share not only the grief and endless pain that has enveloped and gripped us but also my rage – rage, anger, hatred for those who dared to kill our future”.
She said: “I address you with the words of Alexei, in which I really believe: ‘It’s not a shame to do little, it’s a shame to do nothing. It’s a shame to let yourself be intimidated’.”
Navalnaya urged all those who mourn Navalny to unite to fulfil his dream of a “beautiful Russia of the future” so that “the unimaginable sacrifice” he made would not be in vain.
She said: “The main thing that we can do for Alexei and ourselves is to keep fighting. Stronger, more fiercely and valiantly that we did before. We all need to get together in one strong fist and strike that mad regime, Putin, his cronies, bandits in epaulettes, thieves and killers who mutilated our country.”
Navalny’s death has deprived the Russian opposition of its most well-known and inspiring politician less than a month before an election that is all but certain to give Putin another six years in power.
Over the weekend, nearly 300 people were detained by police as they streamed to ad-hoc memorials and monuments to victims of political repression with flowers and candles to pay tribute to Navalny, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political arrests.
Authorities cordoned off some memorials and were removing flowers at night but they kept appearing.
Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service reported that Navalny felt ill after a walk on Friday and became unconscious at the penal colony in the town of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenets region which lies about 1900km (1200 miles) north-east of Moscow.
An ambulance arrived but he could not be revived, the service said, adding that the cause of death is still “being established”.
Navalny had been jailed since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. He had received three prison terms since his arrest, on a number of charges he has rejected as politically motivated.
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