PUTIN’S top critic Alexei Navalny’s body is covered in bruises amid claims Russia had him killed, say paramedics who saw his body.
Navalny, 47, has consistent marks that could show he was “murdered” under Putin’s chilling regime after it was suggested he suffered a seizure in jail.
ReutersRussian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s body was found with bruises on it[/caption]
ReutersNavalny died of sudden death syndrome claimed Russian officials[/caption]
Ambulance workers in Salekhard – close to the Polar Wolf jail where Navalny died – said they found a collection of bruises on his body when they found him.
The corpse is now under police supervision in a morgue at Salekhard district clinical hospital, say Novaya Gazeta Europe.
No official autopsy has been performed yet.
A paramedic who says they saw his body said: “Such damage occurs from convulsions.
“The person is convulsing, they are trying to restrain him, but the convulsions can be very strong, and that’s why bruises appear.”
There were also signs that medics in the jail tried to resuscitate Navalny before he died as there were signs of “chest compression”.
The paramedic continued: “They still tried to resuscitate him, and he died, most likely, from cardiac arrest. But why this stop happened, no one is saying anything yet.”
Russia gave the official cause of death as “sudden death syndrome”, say Navalny’s family and lawyer.
It was confirmed at 14.17 local time on February 16, according to a document given to Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya.
His mother and lawyer were told that he had died of the condition as they waited to say goodbye to his body at the morgue after his body went missing.
Russian authorities later said they delayed the release of the body because they hadn’t found the cause of death yet, prominent Navalny ally Ivan Zhdanov said.
Prison authorities in Russia said Navalny fell unconscious and died after a walk at the feared “Polar Wolf” jail, where he was serving a three-decade sentence.
Navalny, Putin’s leading domestic critic in Russia, had bravely challenged the tyrant’s rule and his horrific war in Ukraine.
His supporters feared that he would be assassinated while behind bars.
Pictures show a woman believed to be Lyudmila at the brutal IK-3 Polar Wolf penal colony in northern Russia after the news of her son’s death was announced.
She was seen travelling in a black car wearing a face mask and sunglasses to cover her identity.
Many are suspicious of the circumstances surrounding his death after he was seen laughing and joking with a judge on a video call on Thursday.
His family also said he was in good health when they visited him in jail just three days before his death.
He had been “cheerful and healthy” in the days before his death.
“We knew that there was a risk, Alexei knew it as well. And yesterday they murdered him as they planned to do it three years ago”, said Yarmysh.
Respected Russian political analyst Ekaterina Shulman told Bild in Russian: “We don’t have too many reasons to suspect a natural death.”
“We see an intentional murder in front of our eyes, not something else,” she said.
“Not even death from hard conditions (in the Arctic jail).”
People in Russia have said he could have potentially been drugged or poisoned inside the colony run by Colonel Vadim Kalinin, 51.
Former FSB colonel Gennady Gudkov, 67, an opposition politician like Navalny, backed these theories.
He said: “He was kept… in torture conditions.
“Either his body did not overcome such torture (or) they might have given some medication that causes heart failure, they could have given a poison.
“We will only learn the truth when Putin is gone. The fact that they killed him is beyond any doubt.”
A total of 231 people have been arrested in Russia for trying to place flowers to honour Navalny or protesting over his death.
WORLDWIDE REACTIONS
David Cameron scolded Vladimir Putin for his role in Navalny’s death saying “we should hold Putin accountable” as he blasted Russia’s “dreadful” regime.
He said: “There should be consequences… look what Putin’s Russia did to him.
“He’s died and that is because of the action that Putin’s Russia took.
“No one can look at this regime now and not recognise it for the truly dreadful nature that it has.”
US President Joe Biden blasted: “Make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death.”
He added: “Even in prison he was a powerful voice for the truth.”
Latvian president Edgars Rinkevics raged on X that Navalny was “brutally murdered by the Kremlin”.
And Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “Obviously, Putin killed him”.