Extract from ABC News
The body of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been handed to his mother, a top aide to Mr Navalny said on his social media account.
Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Mr Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, made the announcement on Telegram and thanked "everyone" who had called on Russian authorities to return Mr Navalny's body to his mother.
Earlier on Saturday, Mr Navalny's widow Yulia Navalnaya accused President Vladimir Putin of mocking Christianity by trying to force his mother to agree to a secret funeral after his death in an Arctic penal colony at the age of 47.
Mr Zhdanov wrote: "Thank you very much. Thanks to everyone who wrote and recorded video messages. You all did what you needed to do. Thank you. Alexei Navalny's body has been given to his mother."
Mr Navalny, Russia's most well-known opposition politician, unexpectedly died on February 16 and his family has been fighting for more than a week to have his body returned.
Prominent Russians released videos calling on authorities to release the body and Western nations have hit Russia with more sanctions as punishment for Mr Navalny's death, as well as for the second anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine.
Mr Navalny's mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, is still in the Arctic city of Salekhard, Mr Navalny's press secretary Kira Yarmysh said on social media platform X.
Lyudmila Navalnaya has been in the Arctic region for more than a week, demanding that Russian authorities return the body of her son to her.
"The funeral is still pending," Ms Yarmysh tweeted, questioning whether authorities would allow it to go ahead "as the family wants and as Alexei deserves".
Lyudmila Navalnaya said on Thursday that investigators allowed her to see her son's body in the morgue in Salekhard. She had filed a lawsuit at a court there, contesting officials' refusal to release the body. A closed-door hearing had been scheduled for March 4.
Ms Yarmysh, Mr Navalny's spokesman, said that Lyudmila Navalnaya was shown a medical certificate stating that her son died of "natural causes".
Navalny supporters detained
Earlier on Saturday, Mr Navalny's widow said in a video that his mother was being "literally tortured" by authorities who had threatened to bury Mr Navalny in the Arctic prison. They, she said, suggested to his mother that she did not have much time to make a decision because the body was decomposing.
"Give us the body of my husband," Yulia Navalnaya said. "You tortured him alive, and now you keep torturing him dead. You mock the remains of the dead."
Authorities have detained scores of people as they seek to suppress any major outpouring of sympathy for Mr Putin's fiercest foe before the presidential election he is almost certain to win. Russians on social media said officials didn't want to return Mr Navalny's body to his family, because they feared a public show of support for him.
Yulia Navalnaya accused Mr Putin, an Orthodox Christian, of killing Mr Navalny.
"No true Christian could ever do what Putin is now doing with the body of Alexei," she said, asking, "What will you do with his corpse? How low will you sink to mock the man you murdered?"
Saturday marked nine days since the opposition leader's death, a day when Orthodox Christians hold a memorial service.
People across Russia came out to mark the occasion and honour Mr Navalny's memory by gathering at Orthodox churches, leaving flowers at public monuments or holding one-person protests.
Muscovites lined up outside the city's Christ the Savior Cathedral to pay their respects, according to photos and videos published by independent Russian news outlet SOTAvision. The video also shows Russian police stationed nearby and officers stopping several people for an ID check.
As of early Saturday afternoon, at least 27 people had been detained in nine Russian cities for showing support for Mr Navalny, according to the OVD-Info rights group that tracks political arrests.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected allegations that Mr Putin was involved in Mr Navalny's death, calling them "absolutely unfounded, insolent accusations about the head of the Russian state".
AP
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