Russian officials on Friday threatened to bury Alexei Navalny’s body against his family’s wishes in the remote Arctic penal colony where he died last week — unless his mother agreed to a private funeral, the late opposition leader’s aide said.
The “ultimatum” given to Lyudmila Navalnaya by members of Russia’s Investigative Committee came with a three-hour deadline, Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on X.
“An hour ago, an investigator called Alexei’s mother and gave her an ultimatum. Either she agrees within three hours to a secret funeral without a public farewell, or Alexei will be buried in the penal colony,” Yarmysh said.
“She has refused to negotiate with the [Investigative Committee] because they do not have the authority to decide how and where to bury her son,” she continued.
Yarmysh said that by law, authorities are required to hand over a body within 48 hours of determining the cause of death.
A death certificate that was given to Navalnaya on Thursday, after she was finally allowed to view her son’s body for the first time, stated that he died of “natural causes” — even though her daughter-in-law Yulia has alleged that Navalny had been poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok.
“[Navalnaya] is calling on the government to allow her to hold a funeral and burial in accordance with traditions,” Yarmysh wrote.
In a video released on Thursday, Navalnaya, 69, said authorities were trying to “blackmail” and threaten her unless she consented to a secret burial that would be off-limits to mourners — something she said she would not accept.
“Time is not on your side. Corpses decompose,” Navalnaya said one of the investigators chillingly told her.
“They want this to be done secretly, with no farewell. They want to bring me to the edge of a cemetery, to a fresh grave and say: here lies your son. I don’t agree to this,” the grieving mom added.
“I want you, who cared about Alexei, and for whom his death was a personal tragedy, to have an opportunity to say goodbye to him,” she continued, addressing Navalny supporters in Russia.
Ivan Zhdanov, the head of Navany’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said his mom’s lawyers had filed a legal complaint alleging “violation of the body of a deceased person.”
The ongoing tug-of-war over the release of Navalny’s body suggests that the Kremlin is fearful that a big public funeral for President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest domestic foe could rile up antigovernment protesters just weeks before an election in which the warmongering leader is seeking another six-year term.
The Kremlin has angrily denied any involvement in Navalny’s death at the “Polar Wolf” penal colony last week.
Since the 47-year-old opposition leader’s death in prison, where he had been serving a nearly three-decade sentence, hundreds of people have been detained by police across Russia for laying flowers at makeshift memorials honoring Navalny, according to the human rights group OVD-Info.
With Post wires