Alexey Navalny’s body was returned to his mother days after family members said they were denied access to his body and were pressured by Russian authorities to hold a funeral in secret.
“Alexey’s body was handed over to his mother. Many thanks to all those who demanded this with us,” Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokesperson, wrote on X, a week after the political dissident died suddenly in an Artic penal colony at the age of 47.
“The funeral is still pending. We do not know if the authorities will interfere to carry it out as the family wants and as Alexey deserves. We will inform you as soon as there is news,” she wrote.
Questions remain around the nature of Navalny’s death and whether a public procession can be held for one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critics.
Navalny’s spokesperson, Yarmysh, said on X that the family was shown a medical report stating that Navalny died of natural causes.
His mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, said in a YouTube video posted earlier this week that she was initially denied access to see her son’s body and accused Russian authorities of blackmailing her unless she agreed to conditions outlining when and how to bury her son.
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, also accused Putin of “torturing” his corpse, challenging the Russian leader’s proclaimed Christian faith in a six-minute video posted on her late husband’s YouTube channel.
“We already knew Putin’s faith was fake,” she says in the video, “But now we see it more clearly than ever before.”
A public funeral for a fierce Kremlin opponent could be disruptive and unfavorable for Putin.
After Navalny’s death was announced, members of the public laid floral tributes in cities across Russia. But videos on Russian social media showed groups of unidentified people removing the tributes overnight as authorities watched, CBS News reported.
Russian watchdog group OVD-Info said on February 17 that more than 400 people were detained after leaving tributes to Navalny.
Yarmysh said on Friday that Navalny’s mother was given an ultimatum to hold a secret funeral or he would be buried at the prison colony.
The spokesperson’s latest update on the return of Navalny’s body did not specify if the family agreed to any conditions.
“We just want a funeral service and to bury him in a human way, in the ground, as is customary in Orthodoxy,” Navalny’s wife said.
