By Alice Tidey & Euronews
Alexei Navalny’s team and family have accused the Russian authorities of hiding his body in a bid to hide the real cause of death.
The body of Alexei Navalny has been handed over to his mother, the spokesperson of the late Russian opposition leader confirmed on Saturday, more than a week after he died in a penal colony.
“Lyudmila Ivanovna is still in Salekhard. The funeral is still pending. We do not know if the authorities will interfere to carry it out as the family wants and as Alexei deserves,” Kira Yarmysh wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Navalny, 47, died unexpectedly on Feb 16 in the penal colony in the Arctic Circle where he had been serving a 19-year sentence on charges of “extremism”.
But his family was initially denied access to his body with different authorities giving conflicting statements as to where he had been transferred. They then said last Saturday that his body would only be released after the results of a “histological examination” would be made available.
Yarmysh had said at the time that the authorities were “driving us around in circles and covering their tracks.”
Our journalists are working on this story and will update it as soon as more information becomes available.