The mother of Alexei Navalny, the late Russian opposition leader, has received his body, more than a week after he passed away in a prison colony in the Arctic, his spokesperson announced on Saturday.
Navalny, who was President Vladimir Putin’s most outspoken opponent, succumbed on February 16 in one of Russia’s harshest prisons in northern Siberia, where he was serving a 19-year term on charges that were widely regarded as political revenge for his dissent.
“Alexei’s body was given to his mother. We are grateful to everyone who joined us in demanding this,” Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said on X, the former name of Twitter.
Russian authorities had denied Lyudmila Navalnaya the custody of her son’s body for the past week, after she went to the town of Salekhard in the Yamalo-Nenets region, the closest place to the prison colony where Navalny perished.
Navalny’s team said on Friday that they had sued to get the body, claiming that local investigators had warned to bury him on the prison site if his mother did not consent to a “secret” funeral.
Yarmysh said the funeral arrangements were still uncertain.
“Lyudmila Ivanovna is still in Salekhard. The funeral is still on hold. We do not know if the authorities will meddle to conduct it as the family wishes and as Alexei merits,” she said.
His team had said earlier that the Kremlin was attempting to prevent a public funeral, which could become a display of support for Navalny’s movement and his opposition to Putin.
The Russian leader, who never uttered Navalny’s name in public, has remained silent on the death of his most vocal critic.
