Navalny’s family accuses Russia of hiding his body to ‘protect’ ‘killers’

While the Kremlin is silent, close relatives of Putin’s number one opponent, who died on February 16 in a prison in Siberia, demand that his body be handed over “immediately”. Alexeï Navalny’s team claims this is an attempt to “cover up” his murder.

The team of Russian opposition leader and Kremlin chief interrogator Alexeï Navalny, who was reported to have died in prison on Friday, is asking for his body to be handed over to his family “immediately” on Saturday, after the activist’s mother was officially informed of his death in prison. “An employee in the prison where the opposition leader was detained said that the body of Alexei Navalny was in Salekhard,” the city in the Russian Arctic region where he was detained, and was taken by “investigators” for “doing ‘research'”, noted Kira Iarmich, spokesperson of Alexei Navalny. “We ask that the body of Alexeï Navalny be immediately handed over to his family,” he added, noting that prison authorities gave his mother, Lyudmila Navalanïa, an “official” document confirming the death of