A day after Russian opposition leader and Vladimir Putin’s critic Alexei Navalny fell unconscious and died after a walk at the ‘Polar Wolf’ penal colony in Kharp, his mother was told that Navalny had been struck down by ‘sudden death syndrome’, Reuters reported quoting Navalny’s team.
The 47-year-old former lawyer’s team even said that his body would not be handed over to the family until an investigation was completed.
On Friday, the prison service had said that prison service was unconscious and died after a walk at the ‘Polar Wolf’ penal colony in Kharp – about 1,900 km (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow – where he was serving a three-decade sentence.
US President Joe Biden paid tribute to Navalny’s courage and accused President Vladimir Putin of being responsible for the death – without citing evidence. Apart from this, Britain said there would be consequences for Russia.
Meanwhile, the Russian administration said the West’s reaction was unacceptable and ‘absolutely rabid’. Putin has yet to comment on Navalny’s death.
ALSO READ: Mourners detained as Kremlin stays silent on Alexei Navalny’s death
On Saturday, Navalny’s 69-year-old mother, Lyudmila, braved Arctic temperatures of minus 30 degrees Celsius to visit the penal colony where her son perished.
She was given an official death notice stating the time of death as 2:17 p.m. local time (0917 GMT) on Feb. 16, Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, told Reuters.
“When Alexei’s lawyer and mother arrived at the colony this morning, they were told that the cause of Navalny’s death was sudden death syndrome,” Ivan Zhdanov, who directs Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said on social media platform X.
According to details, ‘sudden death syndrome” is a vague term for different cardiac syndromes that cause sudden cardiac arrest and death.
Navalny’s team, however, said that it is unclear where Navalny’s body was. His mother had been told that the body had been taken to Salekhard, the town near the prison complex but when she arrived at the morgue it was closed.
Navalny’s body:
The morgue said it did not have Navalny’s body, Reuters quoted his lawyer Yarmysh as saying.
Later, they were told by officials that the body would not be handed over until the investigation was complete, though earlier they had been told that the investigation had discovered no traces of criminality.
“Right now we don’t have access to the body and we don’t know for sure where it is, and we demand that the Russian authorities immediately give Alexei’s body to his family,” Yarmysh said in an interview.
An employee at the only morgue in Salekhard told Reuters that Navalny’s body had not arrived.
ALSO READ: Alexei Navalny death: ‘Very cold place’, Russian critic’s final words in Arctic prison
Despair and apathy:
Following the death of Navalny, his supporters laid flowers in Moscow and other Russian cities to honour him. But overnight hundreds of flowers and candles were removed in black bags.
In central Moscow, several dozen roses and carnations remained in the softening snow on Saturday at the monument to the victims of Soviet repression, which sits in the shadow of the former KGB headquarters on Lubyanka Square.
At the “Wall of Sorrow” memorial on the avenue named after Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, some Russians laid flowers beside pictures of Navalny. One message read: “We will not forget, nor shall we forgive.”
Since Navalny’s death was announced, the OVD-Info protest-monitoring group said more than 270 people had been arrested across Russia at meetings and memorials.
With agency inputs.
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Published: 17 Feb 2024, 11:00 PM IST