©Reuters. A view shows the entrance to the IK-3 penal colony, where Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny served his prison sentence and where he died the day before, according to prison authorities, in the Kharp settlement in the Yamal region -Nenets, Russia February
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KHARP, Russia (Reuters) – Alexei Navalny’s spokeswoman confirmed on Saturday that Russia’s top opposition leader was dead, but said it was not clear where his body had been taken, such as a morgue near the Arctic prison where he is dead, and said he had not received the body. .
Navalny, a 47-year-old former lawyer, lost consciousness and died on Friday after a walk in the “Polar Wolf” penal colony in Kharp, about 1,900 km (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow, where he was serving a 10-year sentence . sentence, the prison service said.
Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said an official death notice had been given to Navalny’s mother, Lydumila. According to the notice, the time of death, she said, was 2:17 pm local time (09:17 GMT) on February 16.
“We demand that Alexei Navalny’s body be handed over to his family immediately,” Yarmysh said.
Until now, the prison service statement on Friday had been the only official word on the death of Navalny, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin.
Yarmysh, writing on the social media platform
When Navalny’s lawyer and Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, arrived at Salekhard’s morgue, they found it closed and were assured that Navalny’s body was not there, Yarmysh said.
“It is closed, despite the colony’s assurances that it was working and that Navalny’s body is there,” Yarmysh said.
“The lawyer called the phone number on the door. He was told he was the seventh person to call today. They don’t have Alexei’s body in the morgue.”
An employee of Salekhard’s only mortuary told Reuters that Navalny’s body had not arrived.
“The investigative committee has a million options,” said the employee, who did not give his name, listing other cities in the region – Labytnangi, Nadym and Urengoy – where Navalny’s body could have been sent.
“In Salechard we have the only morgue,” he said. “I didn’t get anyone, no body…no documents.”
Asked if a body might have arrived before his 8 a.m. shift began, the employee said: “No one handed me anything. I think if a body like that had been handed to us, they would have told me immediately.” .
Lyudmila Navalnaya went to the prison where her son was being held on Saturday, accompanied by Navalny’s lawyer, the Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported.
The IK-3 penal colony in Kharp is located in the Arctic Circle, about an hour’s drive from Salekhard, the administrative capital of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District.
Western leaders and officials expressed outrage over Navalny’s death, which deprived Putin’s Russian critics of their most formidable leader.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday called the West’s reaction unacceptable.
In Moscow, the death left an atmosphere of despair and apathy. The hundreds of flowers and candles placed in the capital on Friday to honor Navalny’s memory were mostly carted away overnight in black bags.
Several dozen roses and carnations remained Saturday under softening snow at the monument to the victims of Soviet repression, which stands in the shadow of the former KGB headquarters on Lubyanka Square in central Moscow.