Navalny appears at a court hearing the day before his death/Reuters
A spokeswoman for the Navalny family said this evening (Saturday) that the body of the Russian opposition leader who died in prison has been handed over to his mother, and that the funeral arrangements are now being determined.
She added that at this stage it is not clear whether the government will intervene in the funeral and allow it to proceed "as the family wants, and as Alexei deserves".
Yesterday it was reported that his mother, Ludmila, was required not to hold a public ceremony.
The authorities gave Navelani's mother three hours to decide whether to forgo a public ceremony, and threatened that if she refused, he would be buried in the prison where he died.
The body was handed over to the family nine days after Navalny's death in the penal colony.
Yesterday, the spokeswoman said that Navalny's death certificate stated that he "died a natural death."
His wife, Yulia Navalnya, accused Putin of murdering her husband, and that he continues to abuse him even after his death.
According to her, the delay in handing over the body is not related to the investigation of the circumstances of the death, but is intended to "put pressure on his mother, to break her, to tell her that her son's body is rotting."
After meeting on Thursday with the President of the United States Joe Biden, Navalnya said: "They have been torturing his mother for several days, the interrogator is lying to her and blackmailing her."
Alexei Navalny at a rally in memory of Boris Nemtsov in Moscow, Russia, 2019/Reuters
Navalny, 47 years old at the time of his death, was the most prominent opposition figure in Russia, who was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison for various offenses, which he and his supporters and Western countries claim was political persecution.
His family, associates and leaders in the West blame President Vladimir Putin for his murder, but the Kremlin angrily rejects this and describes the reactions to Navalny's death as "hysteria".
Putin, who over the years avoided referring to Navalny even by name, has yet to comment on his death, which occurred weeks before the presidential elections.
With no real rivals and total control of the official media, a victory for Putin, which will keep him in office until 2030, is assured.
Despite this, the Russian president is afraid of any manifestation of opposition to him, especially at this time, and hundreds of people who in total laid flowers and candles in Navalny's memory have been arrested in recent days across Russia.
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Navalny's wife, Yulia/Reuters
Navalny's mother, Ludmila, who came all the way to the remote penal colony in the Arctic region where her son was held to claim his body, was refused to see her until Thursday, when she was taken to the morgue.
She said that she also saw his death certificate.
According to Navalny's staff, the certificate states that he died of natural causes, but Kremlin critics do not believe this version.
"They want it to be done secretly, without parting. They want to bring me to the edge of a cemetery, to a fresh grave and say: Here is your son. I don't agree to that," she said in a video she uploaded to YouTube.
"The investigators claim that they know the cause of death, they have all the medical and legal documents ready, which I saw, and I signed the medical death certificate," added Ludmila, who was dressed in black clothes in the video and spoke in a calm voice.
According to her, "According to the law, they should have immediately given me Alexei's body, but they have not done so until now. Instead, they are blackmailing me, setting conditions for where, when and how Alexei should be buried. This is illegal."
Navalny's mother said that "I am recording this video because they started threatening me. When they look me in the eyes they say that if I don't agree to a secret funeral, they will do something with my son's body."
She quoted one of the researchers who said, according to her, "'Time does not work in your favor, rotting corpses.'
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Alexei Navalny
Vladimir Putin