League No. 2 Andrea Crippa's cautionon blaming Vladimir Putin for Alexei Navalny's death shows thatthe rightwing party is still pro-Putin though in a less overtway than previously, centrist Azione (Action) leader and formerindustry minister Carlo Calenda told Corriere della Sera Sundayon the torchlit rally he organized at the Campidoglio in Rome Monday evening to remember the dissident Russian regime opposition leader who died in a Siberian prison on Friday.
Crippa, deputy to League leader, Deputy Premier and TransportMinister Matteo Salvini, said on the death of the 47-year-oldRussian activist that "it's too early to say what caused it, there is no proof it was (Putin)".
Calenda told the Milanese daily that while the League had joined all of Italy's parties in supporting the Campidoglio event, he had not revised his position that the party was pro-Putin, "although it does so less openly now out of pure political calculation".
He added that he was still awaiting a threatened League slandersuit for calling it pro-Putin.
Calenda recalled Salvini's statement a few years ago when, sporting a t-shirt with the Russian leader's face on it, he "hesaid he would give back two Mattarellas for half a Putin".
On Monday's rally, Calenda said "we are celebrating a hero of freedom, who returned home even though he knew he would be killed".
Russian authorities have said Navalny, who survived a poisoning attempt in 2020, died of sudden death syndrome while taking a walk outside his Siberian cell.
Calaenda told Italy's biggest selling non-sports daily: "he was being held beyond the Arctic Circle, he was brought out for a walk at 50 degrees below (zero?. What more do we need to wait for in order to grasp the danger?".
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