1 hour ago
2
The widow of Alexei Navalny, the longtime critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin who suddenly died in prison last year, said Wednesday that two independent labs found that her husband was poisoned.
Yulia Navalnaya said biological samples from her husband’s body were taken out of Russia to be tested following his death — which Russia has provided scant details about — in an Arctic penal colony in February 2024.
“These labs in two different countries reached the same conclusion: Alexei was killed,” Navalnaya said in a statement.
“More specifically, he was poisoned.”
Navalnaya provided no direct proof that her 47-year-old husband had been poisoned or that it had been carried out by Putin or his cronies, who were accused of jailing Navalny for political reasons.
The widow claimed that while both laboratories that tested her husband’s body came to the same conclusion, they have not released their findings publicly due to “political considerations.”
“I demand that the laboratories that conducted the research publish their results,” she said. “Stop appeasing Putin for some higher ‘considerations.’
“You cannot placate him. While you stay silent, he does not stop,” she warned.
Putin and Kremlin officials have vehemently denied being involved in Navalny’s death, with investigators telling his family that he died from a combination of “a dozen different diseases.”
Russian health officials said Navalny’s death came after he suffered from arrhythmia, or an irregular heartbeat, with his widow disputing the claim and noting that her husband never exhibited instances of heart disease while he was alive.
Navalny’s sudden death drew immediate attention, given his disdain for Putin and that he had been allegedly poisoned by a Russian spy in 2020.
The incident led Navalny to be hospitalized in Berlin, where European officials found that he tested positive for Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent.
The Putin critic also appeared to show no signs of illness during a court hearing on the day before his death, when Navalny had argued that a prison officer wrongfully confiscated his pen.
Navalny’s family maintains that he was silenced by the Kremlin due to his years-long crusade against corruption in Moscow.
With Post wires
English (US)