Russian authorities have handed Alexei Navalny’s body to his mother: Navalny spokesperson

Russian authorities have given Alexei Navalny’s body to his mother after days of demands, his spokesperson announced Saturday.

“Alexei’s body was given to his mother. Thank you very much to everyone who demanded this with us,” Kira Yarmysh posted on X, formerly Twitter.

“While Lyudmila Ivanovna is in Salekhard. The funeral is yet to come. We don’t know whether the authorities will intervene with carrying them out the way the family wants and as Alexey deserves. We will provide information as it becomes available,” her post said.

Yarmysh has kept the public updated about the situation with Navalny’s body since his death last week.

On Monday, she said that investigators told the lawyers and his mother that they would not give them the body because it would be under some sort of “chemical examination” for another 14 days.

Navalny, a Russian opposition leader who rose to fame for his dissent against Russian President Vladimir Putin, was announced dead last week in the country’s highest-security prison near the Arctic circle.

The Biden administration has blamed Russia’s government for the death, but Russia has said he died of natural causes. His mother was told that her son died from “sudden death syndrome,” which is a general term used to describe various cardiac syndromes that can prompt cardiac arrest and death.

His mother and other advocates have urged the Russian government to release his body so they can give him a proper burial. Navalny’s body was picked up by members of the Investigative Committee, who conducted “investigations” with him, Yarmysh said Saturday.

She said results of the tests would “supposedly be available next week” and said that it is “obvious that they are lying and doing everything they can do to avoid handing over the body.”

President Biden met with Navalny’s widow and daughter in California on Thursday, where he expressed admiration for Navalny’s leadership and his fight for a “free and democratic Russia.”