People lay flowers for late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the monument to the victims of political repressions in Saint Petersburg on February 24.//AFP
Warsaw, Poland – The body of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been handed to his mother, more than a week after he died in an Arctic prison colony, his spokesperson said on Saturday.
Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critic, died on February 16 in one of Russia’s toughest prisons in northern Siberia, where he was serving a 19-year sentence on charges widely seen as political retribution for his opposition.
“Alexei’s body was handed over to his mother. Many thanks to all those who demanded this with us,” Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
For the past week, Russian authorities had refused to give Lyudmila Navalnaya custody of her son’s…
