“Only solidarity can help achieve justice for Alexei Navalny and his family. OVD-Info began collecting appeals to the investigative committee. Together we demand the release of Alexei’s body. In less than 24 hours, over 12,000 people sent the challenge,” writes OVD-Info on the Telegram social network.
The petition drive was launched by the mentioned platform for human rights late on Saturday afternoon. “At least after death, Alexei must be with his relatives,” added.
The locked morgue in Salechard
Navalny Lyudmila’s mother visited the IK-3 prison colony on Saturday, where her son died suddenly on Friday, according to Russian authorities. According to an official report, Navalny’s body was supposed to be in the morgue in the town of Salechard.
When the mother of the former opposition leader arrived there, she learned that the morgue is locked and the body is not there. Later, Russian authorities announced that the body would not be released to relatives until the investigation was completed.
Double body transfer?
The newspaper Novaya Gazeta wrote today, citing its sources, that the body of the deceased was first transported to the town of Labytnangi, 36 kilometers from the penal colonywhere Navalny was imprisoned.
It was later transported to the Salechard District Hospital mortuary, where it is now. Salechard is the center of the Yamalonen District in the far north of Russia.
An autopsy has not yet been performed, sources told Novaya Gazeta. “The bodies of people who die in prison are usually taken directly to the medical examiner’s office, but in this case the body was taken to a hospital for some reason,” a paramedic working for emergency services in Salechard told Novaya Gazeta.
Police officers outside the door of the morgue
“They brought him to the morgue and stood two policemen at the door… Of course, everyone wanted to know what happened, what all the secrets were for, and if they were trying to hide something serious,” said the medic.
The hospital’s pathologists say they have not yet performed an autopsy. “Someone claims that an order came from Moscow to wait for the arrival of specialists from the metropolis. According to other reports, the hospital doctors themselves refused to perform the autopsy. It’s a political case,” he said.
Bruises on the body
According to the information that the paramedic received from his colleagues, they were also bruises were visible on Navalny’s body, but they did not appear to be the result of a beating. They could have arisen, for example, during a heart massage or when the person in question was convulsing and others were trying to hold him. The DPA agency said that the information published by Novaya Gazeta could not be verified.
Navalny’s mother was told by authorities that her son’s cause of death was “sudden death syndrome”. The 47-year-old opponent of Putin’s regime is said to have become ill after a walk in the prison colony, lost consciousness and could not be revived. According to Reuters, an unidentified source told pro-Kremlin RT television that Navalny died as a result of a blood clot.
