The bruised physique of Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny has been present in a hospital morgue within the Arctic, two days after he died in a nearby prison.
A paramedic informed Russian opposition media that there have been bruises on Navalny’s head and chest when his physique was introduced into the Salekhard District Scientific Hospital.
“Such accidents, described by people who noticed them, seem from seizures,” the unnamed paramedic informed the exiled Novaya Gazeta newspaper.
“The particular person convulses, they attempt to restrain him, and bruises seem. In addition they stated that he additionally had a bruise on his chest. That’s, they nonetheless tried to resuscitate him, and he died, more than likely, from cardiac arrest.”
Russian jail officers stated that Navalny died on Friday after feeling unwell throughout a brief stroll at IK-3, a notoriously brutal jail within the Russian Arctic.
Navalny’s mom failed to search out his physique on the morgue in Salekhard on Saturday and his colleagues on the Anti-Corruption Basis accused the Russian authorities of a cover-up.
Reporters stated that no post-mortem had but been carried out on the physique. In addition they stated that two unscheduled flights from Moscow had landed on Saturday at Salekhard, presumably with post-mortem specialists.
“The primary jet landed at about six within the night. It was met by automobiles of the Investigative Committee. And the second arrived an hour and a half later,” Novaya Gazeta quoted an unnamed supply as saying.
Navalny was Vladimir Putin’s most serious opponent. Western leaders have accused the Kremlin of murdering him. He was going through three many years in jail on numerous prices and had been transferred to IK-3 shortly earlier than Christmas.
David Lammy, the shadow overseas secretary, stated on Sunday that Putin ought to face warfare crimes for the dying of Navalny.
“I’d prefer to see Putin in entrance of that particular tribunal, held to account for all of his crimes, not simply in Ukraine, however as we’re seeing simply within the final 48 hours in Russia as effectively,” he informed the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg programme on Sunday.
The sudden dying of Navalny shocked liberal-minded Russians and triggered uncommon protests in Russia the place demonstrations in opposition to the Kremlin are banned.
OVD-Information, a Russian activist group that displays the Russian police, stated that 400 folks had now been detained throughout Russia, primarily for laying flowers for Navalny at memorials to Soviet repression.
Stories from throughout Russia stated that the plain-clothes safety companies, typically sporting surgical masks, have been following individuals who had laid flowers. Completely different police forces appeared to reply in a different way with some blocking entry to memorial websites and others tearing them down.
These have been the biggest nationwide protests in Russia in opposition to the authorities since September 2022, when Putin ordered a mobilisation to recruit troopers for his warfare in Ukraine.
Analysts stated that the timing of Navalny’s death is necessary for the Kremlin which needs to make use of a presidential election subsequent month to showcase help for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine two years in the past.
Ben Noble and Nikolai Petrov, each Fellows on the Russia Programme at Chatham Home, stated that the dying of Navalny had undermined Russia’s beleaguered, fragmented and exiled opposition.
“There isn’t any apparent determine to take up the position that Navalny crafted for himself, of Vladimir Putin’s fundamental opponent. There will likely be no Navalny 2.0 within the short-term, no less than,” they stated.
At this time Information High Newsmaac
