Lyudmila Navalnaya, mother of Alexei Navalny, saw her son’s body Wednesday night but said she is under pressure from Russia to allow a secret funeral.
“Last night, they secretly took me to the morgue, where they showed me Alexei,” she said in a YouTube video published on Thursday. “I am recording this video because they started threatening me,” she added.
“They are blackmailing me, setting conditions for where, when, and how Alexei should be buried. This is illegal.”
Navalnaya said she spent almost an entire day at the Investigative Committee building in Salekhard, a town near the Arctic prison where her son is said to have died, alone with the investigators and forensic experts – without the presence of her lawyer who was only let in much later.
Appearing calm, in a video which looks to have been recorded in several takes, she said: “They looked me in the eyes and said that if I do not agree to a secret funeral, they will do something to my son’s body.”
She said an investigator told her that time is not on her side and that “the body is decomposing.”
Navalnaya said she was shown all medical documents and has signed the death certificate.
Stressing that she only wants to assert her rights, Navalnaya ended the video with a demand: “I do not want any special conditions. I just want everything to be done according to the law. I demand that my son’s body be handed over to me immediately.”