TALLINN, Estonia, Feb 17, (AP): Alexei Navalny ’s spokesperson confirmed Saturday that the Russian opposition leader had died at a remote Arctic penal colony and said he was “murdered,” but it is unclear where his body is.
An official note handed to Navalny’s mother stated that he died at 2:17 p.m. local time Friday, Kira Yarmysh said. She added that an employee of the prison colony said that Navalny’s body was taken to the nearby city of Salekhard as part of a probe into his death.
When a lawyer and Navalny’s mother visited the morgue in Salekhard, it was closed, Navalny’s team said, writing on their Telegram channel. The lawyer called the morgue and was told that Navalny’s body is not there, his team said. Another of Navalny’s lawyers went to Salekhard’s Investigative Committee and was told that the cause of Navalny’s death has not yet been established and that new investigations are being done with the results to be released next week, Yarmysh said.
“It’s obvious that they are lying and doing everything they can to avoid handing over the body,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter, adding that his team “demand that Alexei Navalny’s body be handed over to his family immediately.”
Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service reported that Navalny felt sick after a walk and became unconscious at the penal colony in the town of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow. An ambulance arrived, but he couldn’t be revived. The cause of death is still “being established,” it said.
Maria Pevchikh, head of the board of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said that the opposition leader would “live on forever in millions of hearts.”
“Navalny was murdered. We still don’t know how we’ll keep on living, but together, we’ll think of something,” she wrote on X.
Arrests continued Saturday after more than 100 people were detained in various Russian cities Friday when they came to lay flowers in memory of Navalny at memorials to the victims of Soviet-era purges, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political repression in Russia.
The tributes were removed overnight, but people continued trickling in with flowers on Saturday. In Moscow, a large group of people chanted “shame” as police dragged a screaming woman from the crowd, video shared on social media showed.
More than 10 people were detained at a memorial in St. Petersburg, including a priest who came to conduct a service for Navalny there.
In other cities across the country, police cordoned off some of the memorials and officers were taking pictures of those who came and writing down their personal data in a clear intimidation attempt.
“After the murder of Alexei Navalny, it’s absurd to perceive (Russian President Vladimir) Putin as the supposedly legitimate head of the Russian state. He is a thug who maintains power through corruption and violence,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at the Munich Security Conference in Germany Saturday.
“Just yesterday he tried to send us all a clear message – as the Munich Security Conference opened, Putin murdered another opposition leader,” Zelenskyy said.
UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Saturday that Britain “will be taking action” against the Russians responsible for the death of Alexei Navalny.
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