Russian jailers report death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny

On the afternoon of 16 February, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service reported the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at Correctional Facility No 3. in the town of Kharp in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, northwestern Siberia.

Source: RIA Novosti

Quote: "On 16 February, at Correctional Facility No. 3, inmate A. A. Navalny became ill after going for a walk and almost immediately lost consciousness. Medical staff from the institution arrived immediately and called for an emergency medical team."

Details: The prison officers also claimed that they had performed all the necessary resuscitation procedures, which were unsuccessful. "The emergency doctors confirmed the inmate's death. The causes of death are being established," the report stated.

For reference: Navalny, who had supposedly been trying to expose the Russian authorities and had been arrested more than once, was poisoned with Novichok in Russia. On 20 August 2020, he fainted on a plane, was taken to intensive care, and then fell into a coma. Navalny’s life was saved at the Charité hospital in Germany. On 17 January 2021, after returning to Russia from Germany, Navalny was arrested and charged with failing to fulfil the obligations of a probationer in the Yves Rocher case [he had been accused of embezzling money from a Russian subsidiary of the French cosmetics company – ed.]. And on 2 February 2021, a court in Moscow sentenced Navalny to more than two and a half years’ imprisonment in connection with the Yves Rocher case. On the same day, people took to the streets across Russia. Within hours, the number of detainees exceeded 1,000.

Background: 

• Alexei Navalny had been imprisoned since early 2021. The Moscow City Court sentenced him to 19 years in prison in a special-regime colony for "extremism" in August 2023.
• In December, the opposition leader was transferred to Correctional Facility No. 3, known as Polyarnyi Volk (Polar Wolf), which is located in Kharp in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Siberia.
• Correctional Facility No. 3 "has always served as a penal colony for particularly dangerous recidivists", the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta wrote in 2006. Mikhail Khodarkovsky’s business partner Platon Lebedev served part of his term there.

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