Kremlin officials rejected on Tuesday a call for an independent postmortem examination on the remains of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
The Council of the European Union had on Monday called for the independent review, saying Russia “must allow an independent and transparent international investigation into circumstances of his sudden death.”
“Mr Navalny’s unexpected and shocking death is yet another sign of the accelerating and systematic repression in Russia,” the council said in a statement.
We knew his death was certain. But is it possible that he actually died just due to the poor conditions there and not due to a deliberate attempt? On the other hand, they wouldn’t have hidden his body if that was the case.
Or perhaps an attempt at torture that went too far?
Last I heard he was in bad shape.
It’s murder either way, but it’s not ‘news’ exactly.
Sorry I can’t think of better way to put it
It’s a surprise to those who saw him laughing and joking on court TV shortly beforehand.
Edit: https://apnews.com/article/russia-navalny-opposition-prison-putin-arctic-f3485b0978a6447e2a657f8b39ee0b50
I haven’t seen that.
I have no real idea with Navalnvy, and only dim memories of news reports about Magnitsky which went into a little more detail, but I’ll tell you how I assume it operates: It’s basically mistreatment to the point that it’ll kill you, just slowly. Your cell’s cold all the time, in the arctic winter with no blankets. You get bad food and bad sleep and beatings and no medical care of any kind. Once your body starts to malfunction (Magnitsky started having kidney failure), they go on beating you severely enough to cause additional organ damage, but then just continue to put you in your cell day after day with no medicine. Basically, you’re going to die, but they’re drawing the process out enough that it’s indirectly, because of “medical issues” related to what they’re doing to you, instead of just from blunt force trauma or something. So it’s incredibly painful and long and drawn-out, a slow death of constant suffering from which you can’t escape or get any relief.