Alexei Navalny’s mother released a video on Tuesday calling on Russian President Vladimir Putin to “let me finally see my son” and to hand over his body “so that I can bury him humanely.”
Lyudmila Navalnaya issued the plea while speaking outside a penal colony in Kharp in northern Russia, where prison officials say Navalny died last Friday after collapsing following a walk. The prominent Putin critic was serving a sentence there on charges he has argued were politically motivated.
“Behind me is the penal colony IK-3 ‘Polar Wolf,’ where on February 16th, my son Alexei Navalny died. For the fifth day, I can’t see him, they don’t give me his body, and they don’t even tell me where he is,” Navalnaya said.
“I am addressing you, Vladimir Putin. The solution to the issue depends only on you. Let me finally see my son,” she added. “I demand that Alexei’s body be immediately handed over so that I can bury him humanely.”
ALEXEI NAVALNY’S WIFE SAYS ‘PUTIN KILLED THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN’
Alexei Navalny’s mother Lyudmila Navalnaya spoke on Tuesday from the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp, Russia. (YouTube/Alexei Navalny)
Navalny’s wife Yulia Navalnaya added on X “Give back Alexei’s body and let him be buried with dignity, don’t stop people from saying goodbye to him.”
She alleged in another video on Monday that her husband was poisoned and Russian that officials were holding onto his body until all traces of the nerve agent disappeared.
“Three days ago, Vladimir Putin killed my husband Alexei Navalny. Putin killed the father of my children. Putin took away the most precious thing I had. Putin took away the closest and most beloved person,” Navalnaya also said, according to The Moscow Times.
NAVALNY’S DEATH REPRESENTS MAJOR BLOW TO POLITICAL DISSENT IN RUSSIA
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny with his wife Yulia in Moscow in September 2013. (AP/Evgeny Feldman)
“I have no right to give up. I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny. I will continue to fight for our country and I urge you to stand next to me,” she reportedly continued, adding that “Putin killed not just the man Alexei Navalny, he wanted to kill our hope, our freedom, our future.”
Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on X Monday that “Investigators told Alexei’s lawyers and mother that they would not release the body. Some kind of ‘chemical examination’ will be carried out on him for another 14 days (!)”
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny appeared in court via video link on Thursday, Feb. 15, a day before his reported death at a penal colony in northern Russia. (Russian Federal Penitentiary Service/SOTAvision/AP)
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“The cause of death is still ‘unknown,’” Yarmysh continued. “They lie, buy time for themselves and do not even hide it.”