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Aleksei Navalny’s mother and his widow have launched fresh pressure on Russian authorities with the dispute escalating over the return of the 47-year-old anti-corruption lawyer and opposition leader’s body more than a week after officials said he collapsed at an Arctic prison.
His exiled widow, Yulia Navalnaya, issued a 6-minute video on YouTube on February 24 telling Russian officials “you tortured him alive [and] you torture him now that he is dead” and alleging that “Putin is directing all of it.”
Navalnaya was in Munich for a major international security conference amid the February 16 announcement of her husband’s death and defiantly vowed to continue her husband’s fight against President Vladimir Putin’s regime.
In the video, she said the treatment of his body nine days after he was “murdered” exposes the Kremlin leader’s “fake” appeals to “traditional values” and the Christian Orthodox faith.
“You will be held to account for all of this,” Navalnaya said, and she accused the Kremlin of “mocking Aleksei’s mother and forcing her to agree to a secret funeral” or they would dispose of the body themselves.
“It is Putin saying, ‘Put pressure on the mother, break her, tell her the body of her son is rotting,'” Navalnaya said in the video.
An ally of the late Aleksei Navalny shared an image on February 24 showing that a lawyer for the opposition leader’s mother has appealed to investigators in the Yamal region where he was said to have died in prison to demand a criminal desecration case because Navalny’s body has not been turned over for eight days.
Ivan Zhdanov, the former head of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, shared the photograph of Lyudmila Navalnaya’s lawyer’s appeal to the Yamal Investigative Committee citing an article in the law on burials. It was dated February 23.
“In accordance with Orthodox canons, it is customary to bury the body of the deceased on the third day. As of today, 8 days have passed since Navalny’s death, but to date the body has not been buried,” the text argued.
Word of the challenge follows the expiry of a purported three-hour deadline that former Navalny colleagues say his mother was given by Yamal investigators to force her to agree to a secret memorial with no word on whether officials would hand over the body or bury it at the Arctic prison where officials say he fell unconscious during a walk.
Russia’s Investigative Committee reportedly relayed the demands to Lyudmila Navalnaya as President Vladimir Putin’s administration appears eager to prevent public mourning and anti-Kremlin sentiment in any farewell to the late anti-corruption crusader.
Kira Yarmysh, the former press secretary of the Kremlin critic, said Navalnaya refused to negotiate with the official, saying the Investigative Committee has no legal right to decide where and how her son should be buried. Navalnaya wants to hold a funeral and farewell ceremony in accordance with traditions, Yarmysh wrote.
RFE/RL could not immediately verify whether an ultimatum had been given. Neither the prison authorities nor the Investigative Committee have publicly commented on the matter.
Russian law states that authorities must turn over a body to family members within two days after the cause of death is officially established. Yarmysh said Navalnaya demanded that the authorities adhere to the law and release her son’s body by February 24, when the two-day period expires.
A day earlier, Lyudmila Navalnaya said in a video posted to social media that investigators had allowed her to see her son’s body late on February 21 in the Arctic city of Salekhard, but refused to hand it over for burial.
Navalnaya said she signed her son’s death certificate.
Family and friends have said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. His wife, Yulia Navalnaya, said Putin murdered her husband.
Yulia Navalnaya previous accused Putin of being behind the murder of her husband.
‘Proper Farewell’
Navalny’s mother said she wants her son’s burial to be public so that all his supporters can bid a proper farewell to the anti-corruption crusader.
Navalnaya has been trying to get access to her son’s body since his death in the harsh Arctic penitentiary was announced on February 16. Prison officials said Navalny died after he collapsed while on a daily walk outside of his cell.
On February 21, Navalnaya filed a lawsuit in a Russian court demanding the release of her son’s body. A closed-door hearing into the complaint is scheduled for March 4, which roughly coincides with the time frame authorities have said they need to perform “chemical forensics” on Navalny’s body.
Rights groups and Navalny’s associates have accused authorities of holding the body to allow them to hide the cause of death.
WATCH: A Russian doctor who was involved in efforts to diagnose Aleksei Navalny after he was poisoned in 2020 says traces of poison can be removed from a dead body.
Earlier on February 23, Navalny’s associates published video statements of many leading Russian public figures urging authorities to immediately release Navalny’s body.
The group included 2021 Nobel Peace Prize Dmitry Muratov, prominent Latvian-American ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, a founding member of the Pussy Riot protest group, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, writers Mikhail Zygar and Viktor Shenderovich, historian Tamara Eidelman, television journalist Tatyana Lazareva, popular rock musician Andrei Makarevich, rapper Noize MC (Ivan Alekseyev), businessman Yevgeny Chichvarkin, and many other noted public figures, nearly all of whom are living in exile.
Ivan Zhdanov, the former head of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said in an interview with Current Time on February 23 that the authorities are refusing to hand over the Kremlin critic’s body above all else to hide evidence of his murder. But he also said they fear a public funeral will attract a “massive” crowd of Navalny supporters who come, flowers in hand, to say their last goodbyes.
“They don’t want to see it, they don’t want it to happen,” Zhdanov said.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a self-exiled leading Russian opposition figure, agreed with that assessment, saying a public funeral could trigger “large-scale confrontations” between Navalny supporters and law enforcement.
“The authorities do not want people to grasp how many of them oppose Putin. The main task of Putin’s propaganda is to convince people that if they are against Putin, they are on the margins,” the former oil tycoon said in a February 23 interview with Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.
“If people see that there are really a lot of them…then the situation can change in seconds,” he said.
Navalny was Russia’s most popular opposition leader with a large, dedicated following around the country. He had organized some of the biggest public protests in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Tens of thousands of citizens would heed his calls to demonstrate against Putin’s rule despite the threat of arrest.
In 2013, Navalny ran for mayor of Moscow, the nation’s capital and largest city, receiving more than a quarter of the vote despite censorship by state television.
Diplomatic pressure on Moscow continues to mount over Navalny’s death as well.
The United States and the European Union on February 23 announced fresh sanctions on Russia in retaliation for Navalny’s death ahead of the second anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
Russian officials have said no foul play was involved and called the international outrage over Navalny’s death in custody “hysterical.”
With reporting by dpa
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