Letter To President Putin, Navalny's Mother Asks His Son's Body To Be Returned To Be Buried

Alexei Navalny. (Wikimedia Commons/EVgeny Feldman/Novaya Gazeta)

JAKARTA - The mother of the late Alexei Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition who died last week, Lyudmila Navalnaya, wrote to President Vladimir Putin, asking for his son's body to be returned so that it could be buried.

Navalny, 47, fell unconscious and died suddenly on Friday after a walk in the "Polar Wolf" colony over the Arctic Circle where he served a three-decade sentence, prison officials said.

Speaking in a video recorded in front of the prison, his mother revealed that she did not know where her son's body was, asking President Putin to give orders to repatriate him.

"For the fifth day I couldn't see it, they didn't give me the body and didn't even tell me where he was," Navalnaya said in a message broadcast on Navalny LIVE's YouTube channel.

"I beg you, Vladimir Putin. The resolution of this problem depends on you alone. Let me finally meet my son," he continued.

"I demand that Alexei's body be immediately repatriated so that I can bury him humanely," he said.

He also sent an official letter to Putin with the same demands.

Separately, Navalny's allies quoted Russian investigators as saying the authorities needed at least 14 days to carry out various chemical tests on their bodies, therefore they could not deliver their bodies.

Meanwhile, Western countries and Navalny supporters say President Putin is responsible for Navalny's death. The Kremlin denies involvement, saying Western claims that President Putin is responsible is unacceptable.

President Putin has so far not made public comments about Navalny's death. Navalny's death deepened the gap in relations between Moscow and the West caused by the Ukraine war for nearly two years.