By EMMA BURROWS and DASHA LITVINOVA (Associated Press)
The mom of Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny appealed Tuesday to President Vladimir Putin to intervene and switch her son’s physique over to her so she will bury him with dignity.
Lyudmila Navalnaya, who has been making an attempt to get his physique since Saturday, appeared in a video outdoors the Arctic penal colony the place Navalny died on Friday.
“For the fifth day, I have been unable to see him. They wouldn’t release his body to me. And they’re not even telling me where he is,” a black-clad Navalnaya stated within the video, with the barbed wire of Penal Colony No. 3 in Kharp, about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow.
“I’m reaching out to you, Vladimir Putin. The resolution of this matter depends solely on you. Let me finally see my son. I demand that Alexei’s body is released immediately, so that I can bury him like a human being,” she stated within the video, which was posted to social media by Navalny’s staff.
Russian authorities have stated the reason for Navalny’s loss of life continues to be unknown and refused to launch his physique for the subsequent two weeks because the preliminary inquest continues, members of his staff stated.
They accused the federal government of stalling to attempt to conceal proof. On Monday, Navalny’s widow, Yulia, launched a video accusing Putin of killing her husband and alleged the refusal to launch his physique was a part of a cover-up.
“They are cowardly and meanly hiding his body, refusing to give it to his mother and lying miserably,” she stated.
Lyudmila Navalnaya and her son’s attorneys went to legislation enforcement companies and the morgue the place the physique is believed to be held within the Arctic area, however had been unable to get them to show it over or say the place it’s.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the allegations of a cover-up, telling reporters that “these are absolutely unfounded, insolent accusations about the head of the Russian state.”
Navalny’s loss of life has disadvantaged the Russian opposition of its best-known and galvanizing politician lower than a month earlier than an election that’s all however sure to present Putin one other six years in energy. Many Russians had seen Navalny as a uncommon hope for political change amid Putin’s unrelenting crackdown on the opposition.
In her Monday video, Yulia Navalnaya vowed to proceed his struggle towards the Kremlin. On Tuesday, her account on X, the place she had posted the video, was suspended by the platform with out rationalization.
In a speech Monday to the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council, she urged EU leaders to not acknowledge the outcomes of subsequent month’s election, to sanction extra Putin allies and to assist Russians who flee the nation. A replica of her remarks was launched Tuesday by Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh.
Navalny, 47, was imprisoned since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. He acquired three jail phrases since then, on expenses he rejected as politically motivated.
Josep Borrell, the European Union’s international coverage chief, known as for a global investigation of Navalny’s loss of life, however Peskov stated the Kremlin wouldn’t conform to such a requirement.
Since Navalny’s loss of life, about 400 individuals have been detained throughout in Russia as they tried to pay tribute to him with flowers and candles, based on OVD-Info, a bunch that displays political arrests. Authorities cordoned off among the memorials to victims of Soviet repression throughout the nation that had been getting used as websites to go away makeshift tributes to Navalny. Police eliminated the flowers at night time, however extra preserve showing.
Peskov stated police had been performing “in accordance with the law” by detaining individuals paying tribute to Navalny.
Over 60,000 individuals have submitted requests to the federal government asking for Navalny’s stays to be handed over to his family members, OVD-Info stated.
After the final verdict that resulted in a 19-year time period, Navalny stated he understood he was “serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of life of this regime.”
In Monday’s video, his widow stated: “By killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me, half of my heart and half of my soul.”
“But I still have the other half, and it tells me that I have no right to give up. I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny,” Yulia Navalnaya stated.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”