Navalny’s mother calls on Putin to release body
The mother of Alexei Navalny urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to “immediately” release the body of her son, in her first comments since his death in an Arctic prison. Putin’s main political opponent died in his penal colony on Friday, Russian authorities said. His team says the 47-year-old was murdered.
His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, who has vowed to continue her husband’s work, echoed his mother’s call and repeated accusations against Putin over Navalny’s death. Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, travelled to the remote IK-3 penal colony on Saturday, the morning after his death was announced, and has since been barred from seeing his body. “I appeal to you, Vladimir Putin. The solution to the issue depends only on you,” she said, dressed all in black, in a video published by his team. “Let me finally see my son. I demand that Alexei’s body be released immediately so that I can bury him in a humane way.”
Behind her was the barbed wire of the IK-3 prison above the Arctic Circle — one of Russia’s harshest jails and the place where Navalny spent his last weeks. “For the fifth day, I cannot see him. They don’t give me his body and I am not even told where he is,” Lyudmila Navalnaya said.
Navalny’s allies have said she mother has been barred from morgues and was on Monday told by investigators that his body could be kept for “at least two weeks”. Navalny’s team also published a written letter to Putin by Lyudmila Navalnaya — who is not a public figure — making the demand.
The Kremlin has refused to say when the body will be handed over and Putin has been silent on the death of his main political opponent. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday brushed off Yulia Navalnaya’s statement that Putin killed her husband as “unfounded and vulgar”.
“I do not give a damn how the press secretary of a murderer comments on my words,” Navalnaya shot back on social media. “Give back the body of Alexei and let us bury him with dignity. Do not stop people from bidding farewell to him,” Navalnaya said. — AFP