“Show me my son once and for all”: the strong message from Alexei Navalny’s mother to Vladimir Putin

As the shock in Russia – and the Western world – continues to abate over the surprise death in prison of prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny last Friday, Russian investigators have informed his family that they will not be able to hand over his body for others 14 days due to an assault. “chemical test”. This was reported by the collaborators of one of President Vladimir Putin’s greatest enemies.

As doubts and speculation grow about the reasons for the death of Navanly, 47, and as the Kremlin rejects accusations that the Russian government is responsible, the opponent’s mother asked the president on Tuesday, in a harsh message recorded on video, to give him the body of his son “so he can bury him as God commands”.

“I address you, Vladimir Putin. The solution to this issue depends only on you. Let me see my son once and for all!”, Liudmila Navalnaya said, in a video uploaded to YouTube by Navalny’s team.

“I ask that Alessio’s body be handed over to me immediately so that I can bury him as God wanted,” he added.

“It’s the fifth day that I haven’t been able to see him, they haven’t handed me his body and they haven’t even told me where he is,” he denounced.

The woman pointed out that the video was recorded in front of the “Polar Wolf” prison in the Arctic city of Jarp where the opponent, detained since 2021 after a conviction for “extremist”, died suddenly on Friday.

Navalny had been imprisoned since returning from Germany, where he recovered from a mysterious poisoning in 2020 that he blamed on the Kremlin.

The Russian government has rejected all charges, although German investigators confirmed that the opposition politician had been poisoned with Novichok, a neurotoxic substance used in Soviet times against enemies of the regime.

formal complaint

Navalny’s team published the letter addressed to the presidential administration and signed in Liudmila Naválnaya’s handwriting on Telegram.

In the text he denounces that the Education Committee of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District does not allow him access to his son’s body.

The 69-year-old mother arrived in that inhospitable part of Russia on Saturday, but both prison officials and morgue employees refused to respond to her requests.

She avoided accusing Putin of ordering the murder of her son, which was done by her opponent’s widow, Alexei Navalny, who took up the baton in the fight against the Kremlin on Monday. Government spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned the claims on Tuesday.

“I don’t give a damn about how the killer’s press officer comments on my words. Return Alessio’s body and let him be buried with dignity, don’t stop people from saying goodbye to him,” said the widow.

He added: “And I really ask all journalists who can still ask questions: don’t ask about me, ask about Alexei.”

Navalny’s co-religionists accuse the Russian authorities of refusing to hand over the body to “erase the traces” of the crime.

“The investigators told Alexei’s lawyers and mother that they would not hand over the body to them, as they would need another 14 days to carry out a chemical examination,” the spokesperson of the deceased opponent, Kira Yarmish, wrote on the social network X.

According to Yarmish it is a “lie” and a “mockery” and the investigators are not handing over the body for “hide” possible evidence of the murder by Navalny.

he opponent’s widow – who has investigated and exposed official corruption and has called a series of marches against the government since 2017 – Navalny, Yulia, said on Tuesday that she will continue her husband’s fight against the Kremlin.

According to OVD-Info, an organization that protects the rights of prisoners, almost 70,000 people have already signed a popular petition for the authorities to hand over the body to the family.

Source: EFE