- Russian
authorities refused to hand over Alexei Navalny’s body, barring his mother and
lawyer access at the prison colony where he died. - Navalny was
the Kremlin’s most vocal critic and was previously hospitalised in Germany
after being poisoned with Novichok. - He was
arrested upon his return to Russia in 2021 and imprisoned in Arctic conditions
in the Siberian prison colony ever since.
Moscow – Alexei
Navalny’s supporters on Saturday accused Russian authorities of being
“killers” who were “covering their tracks” by refusing to
hand over his body, as the Kremlin stayed silent despite Western accusations
and a flood of tributes to the late opposition leader.
The
47-year-old Kremlin critic died in an Arctic prison on Friday after spending
more than three years behind bars, prompting outrage and condemnation from
Western leaders and his supporters.
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His death,
which the West has blamed on the Kremlin, deprives Russia’s opposition of its
figurehead just a month before elections poised to extend President Vladimir
Putin’s grip on power.
On
Saturday, Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, and his lawyer were refused access to his
body after arriving at the remote Siberian prison colony where he had been
held, his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said.
“It’s
obvious that the killers want to cover their tracks and are therefore not
handing over Alexei’s body, hiding it even from his mother,” Navalny’s
team said in a post on Telegram.
“They
don’t want whatever method they used to kill Alexei to come out,” Yarmysh
said in an online broadcast, in his backers’ strongest accusation yet of foul
play.
Across the
country, Russian police on Saturday moved swiftly to break up small protests in
honour of the Kremlin critic, arresting more than 400 people in 36 cities, the
OVD-Info rights group said.
“Alexei
Navalny’s death is the worst thing that could happen to Russia,” said one
note left among the flowers at a makeshift memorial in Moscow.
Silence
from Kremlin
After
initially pushing back at accusations they were to blame, there was no comment
from the Kremlin on his death on Saturday, despite an angry chorus of
condemnation from Western leaders.
G7 foreign
ministers meeting in Munich held a minute’s silence for the leader on Saturday,
while US President Joe Biden explicitly blamed Putin.
Putin, 71,
has not commented.
In the
past, on the rare occasions when he has been asked about his most vocal critic,
the Russian leader famously avoided saying Navalny’s name.
Speaking at
the Munich Security Conference hours after news of her husband’s death, Yulia
Navalnaya said Putin and his entourage would be “punished for everything
they have done to our country, to my family and to my husband”.
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She called
on the international community to “unite and defeat this evil, terrifying
regime”.
Russian
Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov said Navalny’s death was
“murder” and that he was “tortured and tormented” for three
years in prison.
Tributes
continued to pour in on Saturday, as supporters staged anti-Putin protests and
pop-up tributes to Navalny around the world.
In a video
posted by the independent Sota outlet from Moscow, a woman could be heard
screaming as a crowd of police officers detained her, to chants of
“shame” from onlookers.
On a bridge
next to the Kremlin, hooded men were seen scooping up flowers into bin bags
that had been laid at an unofficial memorial to Navalny ally and slain Kremlin
critic Boris Nemtsov.
Russian
courts on Saturday started issuing short-term jail sentences of up to 15 days
for those detained at the commemorations, rights groups reported.
Navalny
died on Friday when he lost consciousness after having “felt bad after a
walk”, Russia’s federal penitentiary service said.
One of his
lawyers, Leonid Solovyov, told the Novaya Gazeta newspaper that Navalny was
“normal” when another lawyer saw him on Wednesday.
In footage
of a court hearing from his prison colony on Thursday, the day before his
death, Navalny was seen smiling and joking as he addressed the judge by video
link.
Navalny’s
mother and lawyer were told on Saturday he died of “sudden death
syndrome” – a vague term with no specific medical meaning.
“There’s
no such thing … that can’t be the cause of death,” his spokesperson Yarmysh
said.
‘I’m not afraid’
Navalny,
who led street protests for more than a decade, became a household name through
his anti-corruption campaigning and electric charisma.
His exposés
of official corruption, posted on his YouTube channel, racked up millions of
views and brought tens of thousands of Russians onto the streets, despite harsh
anti-protest laws.
He was
jailed in early 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he was
recovering from a near-fatal poisoning attack with Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve
agent.
A
subsequent investigation by his team and several media outlets said a Russian
FSB hit squad was behind the attack.
Upon his
return he was hit with a barrage of charges, including a 19-year prison
sentence for “extremism”, widely condemned by rights groups and seen
in the West as retribution for his opposition to the Kremlin.
His
decision to go back despite knowing he would face jail brought him global
admiration.
Moments before being detained, he said in an appeal to
supporters as he landed in Moscow:
I’m not afraid and I call on you not to be afraid.
His arrest
spurred some of the largest demonstrations Russia had seen in decades, and
thousands were detained at rallies nationwide calling for his release.
From behind bars, Navalny became a staunch opponent of Moscow’s full-scale military offensive against Ukraine.
He was forced to watch on, helplessly, as the Kremlin dismantled his organisation and locked up his allies.
‘Don’t do
nothing’
Dozens of
his top supporters fled into exile and continued to campaign against the
offensive on Ukraine and repression inside Russia.
Late last
year, Navalny was moved to a remote Arctic prison colony nicknamed “Polar
Wolf” in Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets region in northern Siberia.
He said in
January that his daily routine included prison walks in freezing temperatures.
Since being
jailed, he spent more than 300 days in solitary confinement, where prison
authorities kept him over alleged minor protocol infringements.
In a
documentary filmed before he returned to Russia, Navalny was asked what message
he wanted to leave to the Russian people should he die or be killed.
“Don’t
give up. You mustn’t, you can’t give up,” he said.
“All
it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Therefore, don’t
do nothing.”