Russian opponent Alexei Navalny dies suddenly in prison, prison services report. He served a sentence of almost thirty years in a prison in the Arctic Circle.
The Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region announced this on Friday sudden death of the influential Russian opponent Alexei Navalnywho was serving a 30-year prison sentence for various crimes.
“Navalni began to feel unwell while walking and fainted almost immediately,” prison authorities said, according to information collected by Russia’s Interfax news agency.
Prison health workers have moved to the area where the prisoner was told to “take all necessary measures to revive him”, although they have confirmed these have not been successful. the death is under investigation
After confirming the death, the penitentiary services announced that a commission of prison officials and doctors will be sent from their central apparatus in Moscow to clarify the causes and circumstances surrounding the prisoner’s death.
Navalny’s spokesperson Kira Yarmish has assured that the opponent’s co-religionists do not yet have confirmation of the death and that his lawyer will soon leave for Yamalo-Nenets.
The Kremlin has avoided commenting on the causes of death of prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who died in prison during the day, and has stressed that an investigation is underway to clarify the causes of death, as announced by the Federal Penitentiary Service.
“I don’t know, it’s up to the doctors to determine,” Russian presidency spokesman Dimitry Peskov said after being asked about information published by Russian media that the prisoner had died of a blood clot. from the Russian news agency Interfax.
Fervent opponent of Putin
Last December, Navalny was transferred from a prison in the Vladimir region, less than 200 kilometers from Moscow, to a prison. prison in Jarp, in the Arctic Circle, near the Ural Mountains. This city is located almost 2000 kilometers from Moscow or about 45 hours by train from the Russian capital.
According to one of his associates in exile, Ivan Zhdanov, the prison bears the name “Polar Wolf” and is considered one of the furthest prisons from civilization in all of Russia.
The 47-year-old opposition figure, who was on the list of individuals and organizations involved with terrorist or extremist activists in Russia, was arrested in January 2021 while returning to Moscow from Berlin, where he was recovering from a poisoning he suffered . and Western governments. They attributed this to the security service of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In August 2023, a Moscow court sentenced him to 19 years in prison for extremism, a sentence he had to serve under a special regime. In early January, Navalny was placed in solitary confinement after being transferred from prison to a prison in Yamalia-Nenetsia, amid complaints from those around him that he had been missing for almost three weeks after failing to appear at successive court hearings. .
The process of transfer to another prison, known as “etapirovanie”, can take weeks, during which time the prisoner is often held incommunicado.
The United States, the European Union (EU) and Amnesty International (AI) expressed concern about the fate of Navalny, the Kremlin’s number one enemy.
On December 7, Navalny asked from prison to vote against Putin in the March 17, 2024 elections.
Navalny also announced the launch of a website (neputin.org) asking Russians to support any candidate for president except Putin.
Source: EITB
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