After a long wait

Mother has finally seen Navalny’s body

Lyudmila Navalny accuses the Kremlin of wanting to bury her son in secret.(Bild: Associated Press)

The mother of Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, who died in a Russian prison camp, has been granted access to her son's body after days of waiting.

She had seen her son's body in the morgue but had not been given it, Lyudmila Navalnaya announced in a video on Thursday. The 47-year-old died in the prison camp on Friday last week. Since then, the mother had been searching for the body in the region near the Arctic Circle.

In the video, she again demanded that the body be handed over to her so that she could bury it and accused the power apparatus of wanting to secretly bury Navalny.

Lyudmila Navalnaya accuses the Kremlin of wanting to bury her son in secret.(Bild: Associated Press)

"They are imposing conditions on where, when and how I should bury Alexei. That is against the law," she said. The investigators had threatened to do something with the body if she did not agree to a secret burial. That is why she turned to the public, she said, because the relatives, but also the supporters, should have the opportunity to say goodbye to Navalny.

Mother said nothing about cause of death
Navalny's mother also said that she had been informed about the conclusion of the medical examination, including the cause of death. However, she did not mention this. Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on the online platform X (formerly Twitter) shortly after the publication of the mother's video that the medical expertise had allegedly determined a natural death. Navalny's wife Julia, his team and human rights activists, on the other hand, accuse Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin of having the opposition figure, who narrowly survived a poison attack in 2020, murdered.

Navalny's mother said that she had spent 24 hours alone with investigators and detectives. She was then let into the morgue in the town of Salekhard in northern Russia on Wednesday evening. Lyudmila Navalnaya did not comment on the condition of her son's body.

Russian clergy demand release of body
According to Kathpress, hundreds of Russian Orthodox clergy and lay people have appealed to the Moscow power apparatus to release the body of Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, who died in a prison camp.

"We call on you to hand over the body of Alexei Navalny to his family so that his mother, other family members and like-minded people can say goodbye to him and give him a Christian burial," the appeal said.