©(Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt / AFP)
Relatives of Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin's foremost opponent, have still not been able to recover the body of the fierce Kremlin critic who died in an Arctic prison on Friday, February 16. They accuse Putin of concealing the truth about Navalny's cause of death.
Alexei Navalny's supporters accused Russian authorities on Saturday of being "killers" who were "covering their tracks" by refusing to hand over his body, as the Kremlin stayed silent despite Western accusations and a flood of tributes to the late opposition leader.
The 47-year-old Kremlin critic died in an Arctic prison on Friday after spending more than three years behind bars, prompting outrage and condemnation from Western leaders and his supporters.
His death, which the West blamed on the Kremlin, deprives Russia's opposition of its figurehead just a month before elections, poised to extend President Vladimir Putin's grip on power.
On Saturday, Navalny's mother Lyudmila and his lawyer were refused access to his body after arriving at the remote Siberian prison colony where he had been held, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said.
"It's obvious that the killers want to cover their tracks and are therefore not handing over Alexei's body, hiding it even from his mother," Navalny's team said in a post on Telegram.
"They don't want whatever method they used to kill Alexei to come out," Yarmysh said in an online broadcast, in the strongest accusation yet of foul play.
Across the country, Russian police moved swiftly on Saturday to break up small protests in honor of the Kremlin critic. They arrested more than 400 people in 36 cities, the OVD-Info rights group said.
"Alexei Navalny's death is the worst thing that could happen to Russia," said one note left among the flowers at a makeshift memorial in Moscow.
After initially pushing back at accusations saying that they were to blame, there was no comment from the Kremlin on his death on Saturday, despite an angry chorus of condemnations from Western leaders.
G7 foreign ministers held a minute of silence for the leader on Saturday as they were meeting in Munich, while US President Joe Biden explicitly blamed Putin.
Putin, 71, has not commented.
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With AFP
Alexei Navalny's supporters accused Russian authorities on Saturday of being "killers" who were "covering their tracks" by refusing to hand over his body, as the Kremlin stayed silent despite Western accusations and a flood of tributes to the late opposition leader.
The 47-year-old Kremlin critic died in an Arctic prison on Friday after spending more than three years behind bars, prompting outrage and condemnation from Western leaders and his supporters.
His death, which the West blamed on the Kremlin, deprives Russia's opposition of its figurehead just a month before elections, poised to extend President Vladimir Putin's grip on power.
On Saturday, Navalny's mother Lyudmila and his lawyer were refused access to his body after arriving at the remote Siberian prison colony where he had been held, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said.
"It's obvious that the killers want to cover their tracks and are therefore not handing over Alexei's body, hiding it even from his mother," Navalny's team said in a post on Telegram.
"They don't want whatever method they used to kill Alexei to come out," Yarmysh said in an online broadcast, in the strongest accusation yet of foul play.
Across the country, Russian police moved swiftly on Saturday to break up small protests in honor of the Kremlin critic. They arrested more than 400 people in 36 cities, the OVD-Info rights group said.
"Alexei Navalny's death is the worst thing that could happen to Russia," said one note left among the flowers at a makeshift memorial in Moscow.
Silence From Kremlin
After initially pushing back at accusations saying that they were to blame, there was no comment from the Kremlin on his death on Saturday, despite an angry chorus of condemnations from Western leaders.
G7 foreign ministers held a minute of silence for the leader on Saturday as they were meeting in Munich, while US President Joe Biden explicitly blamed Putin.
Putin, 71, has not commented.
[readmore url = "https://thisisbeirut.com.lb/world/227329"]
With AFP
This Is Beirut
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