February 24, 2024, 15:45 GMT
Updated 1 hour ago
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Alexei Navalny died on February 16 in a Russian prison in the Arctic Circle
The body of a leading Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny was returned to his mother, says his spokeswoman.
In a post on X, Kira Yarmysh thanked everyone who had called for the authorities to return his remains.
“The funeral is still pending,” she wrote.
Navalny's mother Lyudmila was reportedly asked to agree to a “secret” funeral. If she refused, he would be buried in the prison colony where he died.
She spent the last week in the city near the prison where he died, first trying to determine the location of his body and then demanding that it be returned to her.
After signing a death certificate stating he had died of natural causes, she was given three hours to agree to a “secret” funeral for her son.
If she did not agree, he would be buried in the grounds of the prison where he died, Ms. Yarmysh said his mother had been told.
However, Lyudmila had apparently refused to negotiate with the authorities.
Ms Yarmysh said funeral plans were still unclear.
“We don’t know if the authorities will prevent it from being carried out the way the family wants and how Alexei deserves,” she said.
Earlier Saturday, Navalny's widow Yulia Navalnaya accused Vladimir Putin of holding her late husband's body “hostage” and called for his unconditional release.
“Give us my husband’s body,” she demanded in a video speech.
“You tortured him alive, and now you continue to torture him dead. You mock the remains of the dead.”
Ms Navalnaya again accused the Russian president of being behind her husband's death.
The Kremlin has rejected the allegations and called the West's reaction to the death “hysterical.”
Navalny died on February 16 in a Russian prison in the Arctic Circle.
Details about what happened to him remain scarce. His team has offered security officers €20,000 ($22,000; £17,000) as a reward and assistance in leaving Russia in return for information about his death in prison.
For years he was the Russian leader's harshest critic.
In August 2020, Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok by a team of suspected assassins from the Russian secret service.
He was flown to Germany and recovered there before returning to Russia in January 2021, where he was detained.
Attempts to commemorate his death were met with a harsh response from Russian authorities: makeshift memorials were cleared and hundreds were arrested.