"A planned murder", rather than "sudden death" as Moscow seems to want to dismiss it: Alexei Navalny's team has no doubts that the opponent was deliberately killed and accuses the authorities of not wanting to return the body to the family to "hide the traces" of the crime.
All this while hundreds of Russians took to the streets in dozens of cities to pay homage to the missing dissident and the police stopped almost 400 people.
The long night journey undertaken by Navalny's mother and his lawyer to the Arctic district of Yamalo-Nenets, where the IK-3 penal colony where he was held is located, did not yield any definitive news, apart from the confirmation of his death, which was officially communicated to the woman.
Indeed, from the moment of their arrival in the region, the journey turned into an odyssey, with a succession of contradictory news.
From the city of Salekhard, where they landed, Navalny's mother and the lawyer reached the prison, 50 kilometers away.
Here, said the opposition's spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, they had to wait two hours before an official came out to tell them that the body had been taken to a morgue in Salekhard, at the disposal of the Investigative Committee, which is conducting the investigation. investigation.
When they returned to Salekhard, the two found the morgue closed, and when they asked for information on a telephone number posted on the door, someone replied that the body was not there.
Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, reported that, however, someone had already told his mother in the penal colony that Navalny had died from "sudden death syndrome".
While the lawyer, adds Navalny's team, was told that "the cause of death has not been established" and that the body will be held until the end of the investigation.
That is, until at least next week, when the results of the histological tests should be available.
Kira Yarmysh's conclusion is clear: "There is no doubt - said the spokeswoman - that the murder was planned. Now we ask that Navalny's body be handed over to his family, and we appeal to everyone to ask for it with us. This is the most important thing we can do."
Another appeal, launched by Yarmysh in an interview with the independent newspaper Dozhd, concerns the future of the movement.
"The most important thing," she said, "is to continue working. Our belief that the beautiful Russia of the future will come has not disappeared."
Meanwhile, the pilgrimage to the improvised memorials to Navalny continued in dozens of Russian cities.
A queue began to form early in the morning in Moscow in front of the Lubyanka, the former headquarters of the Soviet KGB and now of the FSB security services, to lay flowers on the Solovetsky Stone, which commemorates the victims of repression during the Soviet Union.
The police limited themselves to monitoring the situation without intervening, only inviting people not to stay for long.
About fifteen people, the NGO Ovd-Info announced, were instead stopped in front of another monument in the capital which commemorates the victims of the USSR, the so-called Wall of Condolence.
The officers intervened when the chorus of "shame, shame" arose from the people who had gathered.
But then the situation calmed down again and the tribute was able to continue.
In the evening Ovd-Info, which protects the rights of incarcerated citizens, said that 359 people had been stopped in 32 cities, of which at least 120 were subsequently released.
Meanwhile, while China refrained from commenting on the incident, judging it "an internal Russian affair", condemnations from the West continued to arrive.
The G7 foreign ministers, meeting in Munich, expressed their "indignation" calling on the Russian authorities "to fully clarify the circumstances" of Navalny's death.
But Vladimir Putin, directly called into question by several leaders, including American President Joe Biden, continues to remain silent.
And for the moment there is no sign that the requested clarifications will arrive soon.
G7, 'outraged by Navalny, enough repression in Russia'
The G7 Foreign Ministers "expressed their indignation at the death in detention of Alexei Navalny, unjustly convicted for legitimate political activities and for his fight against corruption. They asked the Russian authorities to fully clarify the circumstances of his death" and “called on Russia to end its unacceptable persecution of political dissent, as well as its systematic repression of freedom of expression and undue restriction of civil rights.”
This can be read in the statement by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani at the end of the G7 Foreign Ministerial in Monaco.
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