Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s body has been returned to his mother, his spokesperson said Saturday.
Navalny died in prison last week. Russia’s Federal Prison Service had said that Navalny died after feeling ill following a walk. The prison service said an emergency medical team performed all “necessary resuscitation measures”.
“On 02/16/2024, in correctional colony No. 3, convicted Navalny A.A. felt ill after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness. The medical staff of the institution immediately arrived, and an ambulance team was called. All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, which did not give positive results. The doctors of the emergency medical service pronounced the convict dead,” the release says.
The Russian government had resisted returning Navalny’s body but it was returned on Saturday.
“Huge gratitude to everyone who has been demanding this with us. So far Lyudmila Ivanovna is in Salekhard,” Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmys, said in a translated post on X. “We don’t know whether the authorities will interfere with carrying them out the way the family wants and as Alexey deserves. We will provide information as it becomes available.”
Navalny was poisoned with a military nerve agent while on a business trip in Russia in 2020 and survived the attack.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was “obvious” that Putin was behind Navalny’s death” and said the Russian leader must “answer for what he has done.”
Vice President Kamala Harris said the death was “a further sign of Putin’s brutality,” and President Joe Biden said the U.S. did not know what happened to Navalny, but that “there is no doubt” his death “was the consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”
