The body of Alexei Navalny has been located ‘covered in bruises’ after his family accused Russian officials of hiding it.
His body, which was found in a hospital morgue in the Arctic, reportedly shows signs of bruising that were caused by being held down while suffering a seizure.
An anonymous paramedic who has seen the body told local news outlet Novaya Gazeta: “Usually the bodies of people who die in prison are taken straight to the Bureau of Forensic Medicine on Glazkova Street, but in this case it was taken to the clinical hospital for some reason.
“As an experienced paramedic, I can say that the injuries described by those who saw them appeared to be from convulsions.
“If a person is convulsing and others try to hold him down but the convulsions are very strong, then bruising appears. They also said he had a bruise on his chest — the kind that comes from indirect cardiac massage.
“So they did try to resuscitate him, and he probably died of cardiac arrest,” the paramedic said. “But nobody is saying anything about why he had a cardiac arrest.”
Navalny’s body is now under police guard in a morgue in Salekhard district clinical hospital, the outlet said.
An autopsy has not yet been carried out, according to reporters.
It comes after Navalny’s mother was “assured” that her son’s body was at the main morgue in Salekhard on Saturday, but after she arrived at the morgue with Navalny’s lawyer, they discovered it was not there.
While reports emerged earlier today that several officers from the FSB, the Russian intelligence service, had visited the ‘Polar Wolf’ Arctic prison at Kharp in the days before the Russian opposition leader’s death.
Activists at the human rights group site gulagu.net said the officers’ visit was recorded in a report by the local branch of the Federal Penitentiary Service, The Times reports.
The human rights group has also queried the speed at which statements on Navalny’s death were released as suspicious.
Just two minutes after Navalny, 47, was recorded to have died – 2:17pm local time – the prison put out a statement which has been likened to a press release in its alleged preparedness.
Seven minutes later, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, was speaking to the media about Navalny’s death.
“This rapid timing can only mean one thing,” the group claimed.
“Everything was pre-planned and co-ordinated, right down to the FSIN press release. Minute by minute. Second by second.”
An unnamed inmate at the Polar Wolf prison told local media that prisoners in the institution had been told at 10am that day Navalny was dead, Novaya Gazeta reports.
But the inmate said unknown vehicles had arrived at the prison during the night before, adding: “I think Navalny died much earlier than the time that was announced.”
Navalny’s mother was told his body would only be handed over once a post-mortem examination had been completed, she said.
The opposition leader’s team have claimed that he was murdered on Putin’s order.
“Alexei Navalny was murdered,” said Ms Yarmysh in a video.
“The whole world knows that the president of Russia personally gave this order just as it knows that Alexei was never afraid of him, never stayed silent, and that he never stopped acting. We must not give up. This is what Alexei urged us to do,” she said.
In the wake of his death, some 400 Russians have reportedly been arrested for laying tributes across the country to the anti-corruption campaigner, according to human rights media group OVD-info.
The Kremlin is working to stamp out the emergence of any mass gatherings in the wake of Navalny’s death, according to reports.
On Saturday, Navalny’s cause of death was given as “sudden death syndrome”, according to his ally Ivan Zhdanov on X.
An examination into the opposition leader’s cause of death will allegedly be revealed next week.
