Finally, Alexei Navalny’s body handed over to his mother

Photo :Alexei Navalny’s mother says Russian officials tried to force her to hold a ‘secret funeral’

The body of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died suddenly and unexpectedly in prison last week, has been handed over to his mother, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on the social media platform X on Saturday.

Yarmysh said she did not know if the authorities would allow a funeral to be held “the way the family wants and the way Alexei deserves”.

This development comes. after Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, on Saturday demanded that Russian authorities release his body for burial and accused a “demonic” Russian President Vladimir Putin of “torturing” his corpse.

In a six-minute video posted on YouTube, Navalnaya accused Putin of holding her husband’s body “hostage”, and questioned Putin’s often-professed Christian faith.

In the video, an emotional Yulia Navalnaya claimed that Putin personally was responsible for the whereabouts of Navalny’s body, and that he was “torturing” Navalny in death as he had in life.

“We already knew that Putin’s faith was fake. But now we see it more clearly than ever before,” said Navalnaya, dressed in black.

“No true Christian could ever do what Putin is now doing with Alexei’s body.”

Navalnaya said her husband had been a devout Christian, who attended church and had fasted for Lent even while in prison. She said his political activism had been inspired by Christian values.