Navalny widow scorns official version of his death in Russian custody

Yulia Navalnaya, widow of leading Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, said on Thursday that the Russian authorities had offered no convincing explanation for his death in a penal colony six months ago.

In a video posting on X, Navalnaya said she had received a three-page document stating that Navalny's death had not been the result of a crime and that there were consequently no grounds for a criminal investigation.

Navalny died in a Siberian penal colony in the Arctic Circle on February 16 while serving a 19-year sentence on what he termed politically motivated charges.

The prominent activist and critic of President Vladimir Putin survived a poisoning attack with the nerve agent Novichok in 2020 after being flown to Germany for treatment. He was arrested on his return to Russia in January 2021. A series of trials followed.

The official document from the Russian authorities has been published in social networks by Navalny's team. It attributes his death to a "combined illness," including a gall bladder infection, a slipped disc and staphylococcus infection, with cardiac arrhythmia ultimately causing death.

"When I first saw these pathetic three pages, I couldn't believe my eyes," Navalnaya said of the document. "It's another pathetic attempt to cover up what really happened: a murder," she said.

Navalnaya noted that every third Russian had illnesses of the kind described in the document, but did not die from them. In addition, the rules stipulated that Navalny should have undergone a comprehensive medical examination on entering the penal colony and this had turned up no evidence of these ailments.

Leonid Volkov, an opposition activist who was close to Navalny, also criticized the official document. The investigators had taken six months to formulate their version and had come up with nothing, he wrote on Telegram.