The Russian opponent’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, claims that he was “assassinated” in the penal colony where he was detained.
Alexei Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, confirmed on Saturday that the Russian opponent had died in a remote Arctic penal colony and said he had been “murdered”but the whereabouts of his body are unknown.
An official note given to Mr Navalny’s mother said he died at 2:17 p.m. local time on Friday, Kira Yarmysh said. She said a penal colony employee said Mr Navalny’s body had been taken to the nearby town of Salekhard as part of an investigation into his death. She asked that his body be returned to his family.
When a lawyer and Mr. Navalny’s mother went to the Salekhard morgue, it was closed, Mr. Navalny’s team said on his Telegram channel. The lawyer called the morgue and was told that Mr. Navalny’s body was not there, Mr. Navalny’s team added.
“We demand that the body of Alexey Navalny be immediately handed over to his family”, Mr. Yarmysh wrote on X, formerly Twitter. The causes and circumstances of Alexey Navalny’s death on Friday remain largely unclear.
Russia’s federal prison service said Mr. Navalny felt unwell after a walk and lost consciousness in the penal colony in the town of Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets region, about 1,900 kilometers to the northeast from Moscow. An ambulance arrived, but he could not be revived. The cause of death is still being established.
Maria Pevchikh, chairwoman of the board of directors of Mr Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, said the opposition leader “would live forever in millions of hearts.”
“Navalny was murdered. We still don’t know how we will continue to live, but together we will find something,” she wrote on X.
The arrests continued on Saturday, after more than 100 people were arrested in several Russian cities on Friday, as they came to lay flowers in memory of Mr. Navalny at memorials dedicated to victims of the era’s purges. Soviet, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political repression in Russia.
Tributes were removed overnight, but people continued to lay flowers on Saturday. In Moscow, a large group of people chanted “shame” as police pulled a screaming woman from the crowd, video shared on social media shows.
More than ten people were arrested during a commemoration in Saint Petersburg, including a priest who came to celebrate a service in honor of Mr. Navalny.
In other cities across the country, police cordoned off some memorials and officers took photos of those present and recorded their personal details.
