The mother of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Lyudmila Navalnaya, said this Thursday (22) that investigators blackmailed her so that the activist's body would be buried secretly, without a wake being held.
In a video posted on Navalny's YouTube channel, Lyudmila said she saw her son's body in a morgue in the Russian city of Salekhard, where she was with investigators on the case for 24 hours.
Lyudmila stated that she signed Navalny's death certificate. Afterwards, Navalny's team reported that the document indicated that he died of “natural causes”, but family members and supporters maintain that he was killed by the Kremlin.
“By law, they should have given Alexei’s body to me immediately. But they haven't done so until now. Instead, they are blackmailing me, telling me where, when and how Alexei should be buried. This is illegal. They received orders from the Kremlin or the central office of the Investigative Committee right in front of me,” he reported.
“They want [o enterro] be done secretly, without a farewell. They want to take me to a corner of the cemetery, to a newly dug grave, and say: 'Your son is here.' I do not agree with this. I want you, who cared about Alexei, for whom his death was a personal tragedy, to have the opportunity to say goodbye to him,” he said.
Navalny's mother stated that if the family does not agree to a secret burial, investigators have threatened to “do something with my son's body”. An investigator even told him, according to the report: “Time is against you, the body is decomposing.”
“I don’t want special conditions, I just want everything to be done respecting the law. I demand that my son’s body be handed over to me immediately,” she said.
This week, the Moscow Times newspaper reported that Russian authorities are concerned about the possibility that the wake of Navalny, who died in a prison in Siberia on Friday (16), could compromise the re-election of President Vladimir Putin, in a presidential election. to be held between March 15th and 17th.
According to sources heard by the newspaper, one of the hypotheses studied is to never release Navalny's body to his family.
On Monday (19), Russian writer Kira Yarmysh, Navalny's spokesperson, said that, according to investigators in the case, the activist's body would not be released for at least two weeks because “it will be under a kind of 'exam'. chemical' for another 14 days”.
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