No crime was behind the death of Russian regime critic Alexei Navalny, claims an investigation committee in the Yamalo-Nenets district, where Navalny died in captivity in February.
Instead, he died of a natural death caused by a combination of various diseases, they claim in a letter according to Politico.
In a
on YouTube, Navalny's widow Julia Navalnaya calls the alleged investigation "pathetic" and "a mockery". Relatives' demands to see autopsy results and video surveillance have been repeatedly denied, she says.Are we supposed to believe that Alexei, who was healthy enough to go for a walk in 20 degrees below zero, died almost instantly?
In the letter, a number of conditions that Navalny is said to have suffered from are listed, including hepatitis and pancreatitis. In combination with arrhythmia - disturbances in the heart's rhythm - the diseases caused his death, it says.
According to Navalnaya, there is evidence that her husband was locked in his isolation cell after falling ill. The family has been denied the return of his belongings.
There can only be one explanation for this. Only one. He was murdered, and now they are trying to cover their tracks as carefully as possible, she says.
The day before the authorities announced that the 47-year-old opposition politician had died, in the penal colony in the Arctic Ural Mountains where he was serving a long sentence, he appeared healthy and in good spirits in a video-conferenced court hearing.
Alexei Navalny (1976-2024) was a lawyer, blogger, regime critic, and anti-corruption activist.
He made himself known for his sharp criticism of President Vladimir Putin and the power sphere in the Kremlin and was often called "the man Putin fears the most". Navalny published documents that exposed parliamentarians' and politicians' abuse of power, including their secret luxury properties abroad.
Navalny also stood on the barricades during the wave of Putin-critical protests and tried to run in the presidential election in 2018, but was stopped for unclear reasons.
In August 2020, he suddenly fell ill during a flight from Siberia to Moscow. He was treated for a long time in Germany, where it was established that he had been poisoned with the Soviet nerve agent novichok. The Kremlin has denied any involvement.
After recovering, Navalny returned home to Russia on January 17, 2021, where he was arrested, convicted, and later sent to a penal colony in northern Ural Mountains.
