The death of Alexei Navalny: after loud complaints, his mother received the body of Vladimir Putin’s main opponent

The body of Alexei Navalnythe greatest opponent of Vladimir Putin found dead on February 16 in a Russian prison, He was handed over this Saturday to his mother.

“Alexei’s body was handed over to his mother. We thank those who asked with us,” spokeswoman Kira Yarmish said on the X social network.

The Russian president’s leading opponent died on February 16 in a prison in northern Siberia, where he was serving a 19-year sentence on charges widely seen as political retaliation.

Russian authorities Since last week they have refused to hand over Navalny’s body to his motherLiudmila Navalnaya, who went to the city of Salekhard, in the Yamalia-Nenetsia region, near the penal colony where the opponent died.

Navalny’s team said on Friday it had filed a lawsuit to hand over the body, claiming that local investigators had threatened to bury him in prison if his mother did not agree to hold a “secret” funeral.

“An hour ago, an investigator called Alexei’s mother and gave her an ultimatum: either she accepts a secret burial, without public funerals, or Alexei will be buried in the penal colony,” Yarmish said last Thursday.

“He refuses to negotiate with the investigative committee because they have no authority to decide when and how his son will be buried,” he added.

Yarmish said Saturday that funeral plans are not yet clear.

“We don’t know whether the authorities will interfere to make everything happen as the family wants and as Alexei deserves,” the spokesperson said.

Navalny’s team had previously said the Kremlin was trying to block public funerals that could mobilize the opponent’s supporters.

Who was Alexei Navalny

Navalny was him greatest opponent of Putin’s government who he accused of subverting his country’s post-Soviet democracy to stay in power.

Despite repeated arrests and attacks, Navalny has remained an unwavering critic of Putin, who, Navalny alleges, siphoned off Russia’s oil profits to enrich his friends and entourage in the security services, and then used that influence to stay in power.

Navalny he used street politics and social media to build a tenacious opposition movement, even after much of Russia’s independent media has been crushed and other critics have been sent into exile or killed in unsolved killings.

Detained since 2021

Navalny had been behind bars since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recovering in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. Since then, he has received three prison sentencesall of which he rejected as politically motivated.

Western leaders and others who opposed Putin’s rule praised Navalny’s courage. The opposition leader’s health has recently worsened and the cause of his death remains unknown, but many world leaders have said they hold Russian authorities ultimately responsible for his death.

“His death in a Russian prison, one man’s fixation and fear only underline the weakness and rot at the heart of the system Putin has built. “Russia is responsible for this,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a conference in Germany.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Navalny “probably now paid with his life for this courage.”

Before his arrest, Navalny campaigned against official corruption, organized large anti-Kremlin protests and ran for public office.

This Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared Saturday that “truly powerful leaders” like Russian President Vladimir Putin “don’t assassinate their opponents.”

“Putin pretends to be powerful, but really powerful leaders don’t kill their opponents,” Trudeau said at a press conference in Kiev with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, on the occasion of the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of this country .