Alexey Navalny’s 69-year-old mother, Lyudmila, braved Arctic temperatures on Saturday to visit the penal colony where her son perished, in hopes of recovering his body.
“When Alexei’s lawyer and mother arrived at the colony this morning, they were told that the cause of Navalny’s death was sudden death syndrome”, Ivan Zhdanov, who directs Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said on social media platform X.
“Sudden death syndrome” is a vague term for different cardiac syndromes that cause sudden cardiac arrest and death.
It was also unclear where Navalny’s body was, his team said. His mother had been told that the body had been taken to Salekhard, the town near the prison complex but when she arrived at the morgue it was closed.
When contacted by Navalny’s lawyer, the morgue said it did not have Navalny’s body, Yarmysh said.
Later, they were told by officials that the body would not be handed over until the investigation was complete, though earlier they had been told that the investigation had discovered no traces of criminality.
“Right now we don’t have access to the body and we don’t know for sure where it is, and we demand that the Russian authorities immediately give Alexei’s body to his family”, Yarmysh said in an interview.
An employee at the only morgue in Salekhard told Reuters that Navalny’s body had not arrived.
The Kremlin said the West’s reaction to Navalny’s death was unacceptable and “absolutely rabid”.
Vladimir Putin has not yet commented.
https://universul.net/what-does-russia-have-to-say-about-navalnys-death/
