“We demand that Alexey Navalny’s body be handed over to his family immediately,” it said.
Prison authorities on Friday reported that Navalny, widely seen as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s number one political foe, had died after losing consciousness following a walk. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the death and the news received broad coverage by international and Russian media.
But some of Navalny’s closest allies warned that his relatives had not been informed of his death, a requirement by law, giving them reason to hold out a glimmer of hope.
“There’s no reason whatsoever to believe state propaganda. They have lied, lie and will continue to lie,” Navalny ally Leonid Volkov wrote on Telegram. “Don’t rush to bury Alexei.”
That hope has gone now, after Navalny’s mother and one of his lawyers flew to Yamal near the Arctic Circle to visit the high-security penal colony where Navalny had been held.
The 47-year-old politician was arrested and jailed in 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he successfully underwent treatment after being poisoned with a nerve agent in what his allies believed was a Kremlin-ordered attempt to murder him.
