by Felix Light and Mark Trevelyan
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Alexei Navalny’s mother accused Russian investigators on Thursday of “blackmail” over the late Kremlin opponent’s funeral, saying they were trying to force her to bury him in secret, without ceremony, which she says she refused, instead demanding that her son’s body be returned to her.
Lyudmila Navalnaya made the accusations in a video posted on YouTube, six days after the sudden death of Alexei Navalny, 47, while serving a long prison sentence in a penal colony in the Arctic.
Indicating that she was able to see the corpse and the death certificate of her son, she accused the Russian authorities of having threatened to “do something” with the body of Alexeï Navalny if she did not agree to bury him in secret.
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There was no immediate comment from Russian authorities.
Those close to Alexeï Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s best-known opponent, accuse the Russian president of having killed him, which the Kremlin firmly denies.
Vladimir Putin has not yet commented on the death of Alexeï Navalny, hospitalized in Germany in the summer of 2020 following an attempted poisoning with a nerve agent then imprisoned upon his return to Russia at the start 2021.
Alexei Navalny was serving a sentence of more than 30 years in prison after being found guilty of fraud and “extremist” activities, charges he denounced as political maneuvers to silence him.
His death shocked the Russian opposition, one month before the presidential election in which Vladimir Putin is guaranteed to remain in power for six more years.
“THEY STARTED TO THREATEN ME”
Western countries also reacted to the death of Alexeï Navalny, with American President Joe Biden, in particular, having said he held Vladimir Putin “responsible”. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denounced Western “hysteria”.
Joe Biden met Alexei Navalny’s wife and daughter in San Francisco on Thursday, calling the latter a “man of incredible courage.”
Speaking to reporters, the head of the White House added that Washington plans to impose a wide range of sanctions against Russia and Vladimir Putin in response to the death of Alexei Navalny.
Lyudmila Navalnaya said in the video that she was taken to the morgue Wednesday evening to view her son’s body. “The investigators claim that they know the cause of death. They have all the medical and legal documents ready – I saw them – and I signed the medical certificate of death,” she said, dressed in black and speaking in a calm voice.
Via social networks, Alexei Navalny’s team declared that the former lawyer’s death certificate states that he died of “natural causes”.
“They want this to be done in secret, without a farewell. They want to bring me to the entrance of a cemetery, in front of a fresh grave, and say: here lies your son. I do not agree with this,” Lyudmila Navalnaya added in the video.
“According to the law, they should have returned Alexei’s body to me immediately, but they have not done so until now,” she continued. “Instead, they are blackmailing me, setting conditions on when, where and how Alexei must be buried. This is illegal.”
“I’m recording this video because they started threatening me. They looked me in the eye and told me that if I don’t agree to a secret funeral, they will do something with my son’s body.”
(Reporting from the Moscow bureau, with contributions from Trevor Hunnicutt in San Francisco; French version Jean Terzian)
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