Putin foe Alexei Navalny was “tightly tied at the arms and legs” for four to five hours before he was pronounced dead, a new report says.
Russian human rights group gulagu.net claimed that a forensic expert who examined the corpse of the 47-year-old opposition leader has come under pressure from secret services to conceal his findings.
According to initial Russian reports, Navalny died of a “dislodged blood clot” in a hellish prison in the Arctic – called Polar Wolf – where he was imprisoned as a result of an act of political repression.
Now the organization says in a brief report: ‘The forensic expert was pressured to conceal the discovery of blood clots… in the calf muscles and arms’.
This indicated ‘the formation of blood clots due to disruption of normal blood circulation’.
A new report claims that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was “tightly tied around the arms and legs for four to five hours before he died” on February 16.
Human rights activist and founder of Gulagu.net, a human rights organization focusing on corruption and torture in Russia, Vladimir Osechkin
The entrance to the Arctic penal colony IK-3 where Navalny has been held since December 2023
One source said the forensic expert was “inclined to believe that the prisoner had been restrained by his arms and legs four to five hours before the onset of biological death.”
His limbs “were tied so tightly that blood stagnated and blood clots formed in them, which subsequently blocked the pulmonary artery and blood vessels of the brain,” said a statement from the organization, headed by Vladimir Osechkin.
No evidence was provided to support the accusation of direct physical abuse, but Western leaders and other Russian opposition figures have already claimed that Navalny was killed on Vladimir Putin’s orders.
The forensic expert and the investigators of the Investigative Committee ‘are under heavy pressure from the Federal Security Service (FSB) to obstruct the investigation’.
They are told to “conceal the circumstances of the commission of a particularly serious crime against Alexei Navalny – torture and contract killing.”
It is understood that Russian authorities have extended the deadline for a preliminary investigation into the still unexplained death of the captured Russian opposition leader.
The new date is April 20, said Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.
Russian authorities have extended the deadline for a preliminary investigation into Navalny’s death. Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said the new date is April 20.
Initial Russian reports say Navalny died of a ‘dislodged blood clot’ in a hellish prison in the Arctic
This means that “there is still no official information from the government on the cause of death,” he said.
The FSB has been accused of an earlier attempt to assassinate Navalny by poisoning him with the nerve agent Novichok.
Navalny died suddenly on February 16 in a remote penal colony in the Arctic, where he was serving a 19-year prison sentence on extremism charges widely seen as politically motivated.
He had appeared on video shortly before his death and appeared healthy.
Russian prison authorities initially said the politician “felt unwell” and fainted after walking in the prison grounds, but no specific cause of death has been revealed so far.
Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Ivanovna, was shown a medical certificate stating that her son died of “natural causes.”
But after his death, she was handed her late son’s body after an agonizing nine-day wait as she waited in Salekhard, near the eerie IK-3 Arctic penal colony where Navalny had been held since December.
Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said the Investigative Committee, the country’s top criminal investigative agency, informed Lyudmila Navalnaya that the official investigation into the death has been extended.
“They lie, buy time for themselves and don’t even hide it,” Yarmysh wrote on X.
Yulia Navalnaya accused Russian authorities of hiding Navalny’s body while waiting for traces of the nerve agent to disappear.
Russian officials have vehemently denied that Navalny was killed and said at the time they would not release the body to the family for a fortnight as investigators looked into the hazy circumstances surrounding his death.
A brief funeral was held for the opposition leader in Moscow on March 1, as brave mourners paid their respects – despite fears of mass arrests
Relatives and friends pay their last respects at the coffin of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God, soothes my grief, March 1
Navalny was last seen on February 15 (pictured), the day before he died
Navalny’s widow said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “Satan” for holding her late husband’s body “hostage.”
Maria Pevchikh – an exiled ally of Navalny – said he was killed as plans were underway to swap him in a prisoner swap.
Putin appeared to support the theory that Navalny may have been traded, but said: “Unfortunately, whatever happened, happened.”
A brief funeral was held for the opposition leader in Moscow on March 1, as thousands of mourners gathered around his open coffin.
Photos of the event showed the coffin being carried past large crowds of mourners – some holding red flowers – as they bravely gathered despite fears of mass arrests.
Brave mourners sang “Navalny, Navalny!” As the coffin was carried from a black hearse to a Russian Orthodox church – Church of the Icon of the Mother of God my grief eased, and as the coffin was wheeled away less than an hour later, the people again chanted: “Russia without Putin” , ‘Putin is a murderer’ and ‘We will not forget’.