Wladimir Putin He wants at all costs to avoid a big ceremony to say goodbye to someone who has been his strongest opponent in the last decade. “An investigator called Alexei’s (Navalni) mother an hour ago and gave her an ultimatum. “Either he accepts a secret funeral without a public farewell within three hours, or Alexei will be buried in the colony,” the Russian dissident’s spokesman revealed on Friday. Kira Yarmysh.
Lyudmila Navalnaya Hours earlier, he had denounced pressure from Russian authorities to accept a secret funeral. “They are blackmailing me, they are setting conditions as to where, when and how my son should be buried,” he denounced in a recording published on Thursday. “They want me to do it in secret, without a mourning ceremony.”
Family spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said the late dissident’s mother was also presented with a medical certificate stating that the 47-year-old politician died of “natural causes.”
Lyudmila Navalnaya has not given in to the pressure for the time being. “He refused to negotiate with the investigative committee because it does not have the authority to decide how and where his son should be buried,” says Yarmysh. Instead, Navalnaya demands “compliance with the law, according to which investigators are obliged to hand over the body within two days of determining the cause of death.” According to the medical documents he signed, these two days expire tomorrow. “Insist that the authorities allow the funeral and memorial services to be held in accordance with normal practice.”
Navalnaya has already filed a lawsuit in a court in Salekhard, the administrative center of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, against officials’ refusal to hand over her son’s body. A closed hearing is scheduled for March 4.