Navalny's mother, Lyudmila, and his lawyer travelled over the weekend to the notorious Polar Wolf IK-3 penal colony in Russia's Arctic north, where Navalny had been held since last year, to track down his body but received contradicting information over its location. His mother left without recovering or seeing her son.
More than 350 people have been detained in Russia for taking part in vigils for the 47-year-old and, as outrage grew among western leaders, the EU foreign policy chief said Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, would today address the bloc's foreign ministers. Yesterday she posted the message "I love you" to Instagram, along with a photograph of her and her husband.
Western leaders say they hold the Kremlin responsible for the death.
Lyudmila Navalnaya, who remains in Russia, was first told her son's body had been taken to Salekhard, the town near the prison complex but when she arrived at the morgue on Saturday it was shut. "They're driving us around in circles and covering their tracks," Navalny's spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said.
Ivan Zhdanov, who directs Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, said Navalny's lawyer and mother were told the cause of death was "sudden death syndrome" a vague term for a range of cardiac conditions that cause cardiac arrest.
Novaya Gazeta Europe, an independent news outlet, cited unidentified sources as saying that Navalny's body had been taken yesterday to the morgue at the Salekhard district clinical hospital.
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