Navalny’s body still out of reach as probe extended
MOSCOW: The mother of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is being refused access to his body for a third day, his team said on Monday as his widow prepared to meet top European diplomats.
Navalny’s death in an Arctic prison last week has shocked the country’s exiled opposition, which — along with the West — pointed the finger at the Kremlin.
Navalny’s allies said investigators told his mother, Lyudmila, the investigation into his death in prison “has been extended.”
Russia’s prison service said Navalny, 47, died last Friday after a walk in his remote prison above the Arctic Circle.
His mother traveled to the isolated prison colony in the town of Kharp — about 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) away from the capital Moscow — on Saturday, but was told his body was not there.
She was then sent to a morgue in the regional hub of Salekhard, but officials there also denied her access to the body.
“Alexei’s mother and his lawyers arrived at the morgue early in the morning. They were not allowed to go in,” Navalny’s spokesman Kira Yarmysh said on social media.
“One of the lawyers was literally pushed out. When the staff was asked if Alexei’s body was there, they did not answer,” she added.
She later said the mother — who has not spoken publicly — was told a probe into his death was being prolonged.
“It is not known how long it will continue. The cause of death is still‘ undetermined .’” Y army sh said .“They’ re lying, playing for time and do not even hide it.”
Members of Navalny’s team, which has operated from outside Russia for more than two years, have demanded that his body be handed over to relatives.
They have accused authorities of “covering up their tracks.”
Putin has not yet commented on the death, despite making public appearances after it was announced.
Authorities have detained hundreds of mourners who brought flowers to local monuments across Russia over the weekend, rights groups said.
As his relatives and lawyers searched for his body in the Russian Far North, his widow Yulia Navalnaya headed to Belgium’s capital Brussels on Monday to meet European Union foreign ministers.
She has held Putin personally responsible for her husband’s death.
“I want Putin and all his entourage, [his] friends and his government to know: they will bear responsibility for what they did to our country, to my family, to my husband,” she said when the death was announced on Friday.
The West has also blamed Putin and his government for Navalny’s death.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he would welcome Yulia Navalnaya to the bloc’s Foreign Affairs Council on Monday.
“EU ministers will send a strong message of support to freedom fighters in Russia” and “honor” Navalny’s memory, he added on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday.
Navalnaya was by Navalny’s side throughout his more than decade-long fight against the Kremlin.
She managed to fly him out of Russia when he was poisoned in 2020 with what doctors said was a nerve agent and defiantly returned with him to Moscow, knowing he would go to prison, in 2021.
As the West mounted pressure on Russia, blaming Putin for the death, the Kremlin remained silent.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry decried “sweeping accusations” by the West in the hours after the death, but no highplaced officials have since commented.
Russia’s prison service said in a short statement that Navalny had died “after a walk” in the IK-3 colony, known as the “Polar Wolf.”
Navalny had continued from behind bars to call on Russians to fight against the regime, calling on them “not to be afraid.”