Lyudmila Navalnaya, the mother of dead Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, demanded on Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin hand over her son’s body so she could bury him.
Navalny, 47, fell unconscious and died suddenly on Friday after a walk at the “Polar Wolf” penal colony above the Arctic Circle where he was serving a three-decade sentence, the prison service said.
Speaking in a video filmed front of the prison as small snow flakes swirled in the air, his mother – dressed in black – complained she did not even know where her son’s corpse was and demanded Putin give the order to release it.
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“For a fifth day I cannot see him, they aren’t giving me his body and don’t even tell me where he is,” Navalnaya said in the message which was broadcast on the Navalny LIVE YouTube channel.
“I appeal to you, Vladimir Putin. Resolving this issue depends on you alone. Let me finally see my son.
“I demand that Alexei’s body be released immediately so that I can bury him humanely.”
She also sent an official letter to Putin with the same demand.
Navalny’s allies have cited a Russian investigator as saying that the authorities need at least 14 days to conduct various chemical tests on his body and can not therefore hand his corpse over yet.
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Also on Tuesday, the X account of Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Navalny, was briefly suspended due to what the social media company said was an error caused by a system to prevent manipulation and spam.
“Our platform’s defence mechanism against manipulation and spam mistakenly flagged @yulia_navalnaya as violating our rules,” X said in a statement.
“We unsuspended the account as soon as we became aware of the error, and will be updating the defence.”
Navalnaya, who has said she wants to continue her late husband’s political struggle against Putin, opened the account on Monday.
It has so far attracted more than 150,000 followers and a video statement she posted on it on Monday has been viewed nearly 5 million times.
A timeline of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny's life, from law school to Siberian prison
The West and Navalny’s supporters say Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. The Kremlin has denied involvement and said that Western claims that Putin was responsible were unacceptable.
Putin has made no public comment on Navalny’s death but it has further deepened a gaping schism in relations between Moscow and the West caused by the nearly two-year Ukraine war.