Navalny’s mom sues for launch of physique; mourners face navy draft | EUROtoday

Navalnaya traveled Saturday to the Polar Wolf jail, simply above the Arctic Circle within the Yamalo-Nenets area, the place Navalny died all of a sudden on Friday. Since then, she has been locked in a Kafkaesque battle with Russian authorities over his physique.

Navalnaya’s court docket motion was filed within the metropolis court docket in Salekhard, the regional capital 33 miles from the jail.

On Tuesday, she stood exterior the jail and recorded a video enchantment to President Vladimir Putin, requesting that he personally direct authorities to launch the physique and permit her to bury her son.

For many younger Russians, goals of democracy died with Alexei Navalny

In scenes that recall Soviet authorities’ therapy of the households of political prisoners, Navalnaya has not been allowed to even see her son’s physique, and her requests for data on the place it’s being held have been rebuffed.

Officials of Russia’s Investigative Committee informed Navalnaya and the household’s attorneys on Monday that the physique would endure “chemical” investigation for not less than 14 days.

“It’s been five days, and I still can’t see him; they don’t give me his body, and they don’t even tell me where he is,” Navalnaya mentioned within the video assertion. “I appeal to you, Vladimir Putin, the resolution to the issue depends solely on you. Let me finally see my son. I demand that Alexei’s body be immediately handed over so that I can bury him decently.”

Nearly 77,000 Russians have signed a petition initiated by authorized rights group OVD-Info, calling on Russian authorities to give up the physique to the household.

Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, who on Monday vowed to proceed her husband’s work, additionally wrote to Putin to request the discharge of the physique, based on Navalny’s staff.

What to learn about Yulia Navalnaya as she vows to tackle Vladimir Putin

On Monday, Yulia Navalnaya accused Russian officers of fatally poisoning her husband with a nerve agent and holding onto his physique as a part of a coverup. Navalny survived a poisoning assault with a Novichok-type agent in August 2020.

After Navalny was poisoned, docs at a hospital within the Siberian metropolis of Omsk put him right into a medically induced coma, and native authorities refused to permit his spouse or private docs into the ward to see him.

Hospital and safety officers obstructed Yulia Navalnaya’s efforts to evacuate her husband for therapy exterior Russia. At the time, she appealed on to Putin, who allowed her to fly Navalny to Germany two days after he fell unwell.

Putin has not publicly talked about Navalny because the opposition chief’s dying. Navalny was seen extensively because the president’s most formidable rival, however Putin has made some extent of just about by no means uttering his title.

On Monday, nonetheless, the Russian president pointedly promoted a number of members of Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service, together with the primary deputy director, Valery Boyarinev, whom he awarded the rank of colonel normal.

Since Navalny’s dying, Russian authorities have arrested greater than 400 Russian residents who laid flowers in his reminiscence, recorded the names of a whole bunch extra and eliminated piles of flowers from memorial websites.

In St. Petersburg, a number of younger males arrested at Navalny memorials had been handed navy draft summonses as they exited detention facilities, based on Russian Telegram outlet RusNews, which posted a picture of one of many summonses on Wednesday.

Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report.