Russia claims Alexei Navalny died of 'sudden death syndrome' as mother searches for body

With prominent opponents of Vladimir Putin dead or in jail, it is not clear who is going to take Alexei Navalny's place, ITV News Correspondent Ian Woods reports

The mother of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been told by authorities that he died as a result of "sudden death syndrome", according to a close ally.

Mr Navalny, the fiercest foe of President Vladimir Putin, died in prison on Friday, after falling unconscious following a walk at the remote Arctic "Polar Wolf" penal colony, officials said.

His mother was seen visiting the prison where he died, and has demanded for the body to be returned to the family. Authorities have so far refused this request, and it is not clear where the body is being kept.

As Lyudmila Navalnaya sought answers from officials, they claimed to know how her son died, according to Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, he said: "When [Mr Navalny's] lawyer and Alexei’s mother arrived at the colony this morning, they were told that the cause of Navalny’s death was sudden death syndrome."

Footage shared on social media shows people removing flowers from a memorial in Moscow

Mr Zhdanov added that the colony had "deceived" the visitors by claiming the body was at Salekhard morgue.

Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said that when Mr Navalny phoned the morgue, staff said the opposition leader's body was not there.

At around 1pm UK time, Ms Yarmysh tweeted: "Only an hour ago, the lawyers were informed that the investigation had been concluded and that something criminal had not been established. "They literally lie every time, driving us around in circles and covering their tracks."

“It’s obvious that they are lying and doing everything they can to avoid handing over the body,” Ms Yarmysh wrote separately, adding that the family “demand that Alexei Navalny’s body be handed over to his family immediately”.

So far 401 people have been detained in 36 cities across Russia after people came to lay flowers in memory of Mr Navalny, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political repression in Russia.

Floral tributes were removed overnight by groups of unidentified people while police watched, videos on Russian social media show.

Several were detained at a memorial in St. Petersburg, including a priest who came to conduct a service for Mr Navalny there.

On Saturday, police blocked access to a memorial in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and detained several people there as well as in another Siberian city, Surgut, OVD-Info said.

Video shared on social media from Novosibirsk showed people sticking red flowers upright in the snow under the watchful eye of police who blocked access to the memorial with ticker tape.

In Moscow, flowers were removed overnight from a memorial near the headquarters of Russia's Federal Security Service by a large group while police looked on, a video showed.

But by morning more flowers had appeared.

The news of Mr Navalny's death comes less than a month before an election that will give Putin another six years in power.

It shows “that the sentence in Russia now for opposition is not merely imprisonment, but death,” Nigel Gould-Davies, a former British ambassador to Belarus and senior fellow for Russia & Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said.

The circumstances of Mr Navalny’s death are still largely unclear.

Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service reported that Mr Navalny felt sick after a walk on Friday and lost consciousness at the penal colony in the town of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow.

An ambulance arrived, but he couldn’t be revived.

Mr Navalny had been jailed since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow to face certain arrest after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin.

He was later convicted three times, saying each case was politically motivated, and received a sentence of 19 years for extremism.

After the last verdict, Mr Navalny said he understood he was “serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of life of this regime.”

Hours after Mr Navalny's death was reported, his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, made a dramatic appearance at a security conference in Germany where many leaders had gathered.

Mr Navalny has been arrested multiple times for spurious allegations made by the Russian government, including extremism-related charges and for participating in protests

She said she had considered cancelling, “but then I thought what Alexei would do in my place. And I’m sure he would be here,” adding that she was unsure if she could believe the news from official Russian sources.

“But if this is true, I want Putin and everyone around Putin, Putin’s friends, his government to know that they will bear responsibility for what they did to our country, to my family and to my husband. And this day will come very soon,” Ms Navalnaya said.

US President Joe Biden said Washington doesn’t know exactly what happened, “but there is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something Putin and his thugs did.”

Mr Navalny “could have lived safely in exile,” but returned home despite knowing he could be imprisoned or killed “because he believed so deeply in his country, in Russia.”

In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Navalny “has probably now paid for this courage with his life.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Mr Putin was told of Mr Navalny’s death.

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