Alexei Navalny’s body reportedly shows signs of bruising that were caused by being held down while he suffered a seizure, raising fears that he was killed on the orders of Vladimit Putin.
The wounds are consistent with the Russian opposition leader – who died aged 47 on Friday amid claims he was ‘murdered’ by Vladimir Putin’s regime – having suffered a ‘seizure’, according to independent outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe.
The news outlet spoke to a paramedic in the Salekhard ambulance service, close to the IK-3 penal colony, also known as ‘Polar Wolf’, where Navalny, 47, was being held before reports of his death emerged on Friday.
Paramedics found bruises on Navalny’s body, which is now under police guard in a morgue at Salekhard district clinical hospital, according to the independent news outlet.
‘Usually the bodies of people who die in prison are taken straight to the Bureau of Forensic Medicine on Glazkova Street, but in this case it was taken to the clinical hospital for some reason,’ the anonymous paramedic told the outlet.
‘As an experienced paramedic, I can say that the injuries described by those who saw them appeared to be from convulsions.
Alexei Navalny’s (pictured) body shows signs of bruising, according to a new account
Vladimir Putin (pictured) has been accused of signing off on his murder
A view of the entrance of the IK-3 prison colony in the town of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenetsk region about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia
‘If a person is convulsing and others try to hold him down but the convulsions are very strong, then bruising appears. They also said he had a bruise on his chest — the kind that comes from indirect cardiac massage.
‘So they did try to resuscitate him, and he probably died of cardiac arrest,’ the paramedic said, adding: ‘But nobody is saying anything about why he had a cardiac arrest.’
An autopsy has not been carried out yet, according to the outlet.
Earlier, Navalny’s mother was wrongly informed that the politician’s body was at the main morgue in Salekhard.
Now the family has been told that the cause of death has not been established and his body cannot yet be passed to relatives for burial.
Details of Navalny’s passing are few and far between, and those that have been made public have contradicted each other.
A couple lay flowers to pay the last respect to Alexei Navalny at the monument, a large boulder from the Solovetsky islands, where the first camp of the Gulag political prison system was established
Details of Navalny’s passing are few and far between, and those that have been made public have contradicted each other.
Police officers detain a woman during a gathering in memory of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny near the Wall of Grief monument
Navalny’s allies say they were denied the opportunity to see the body, which would remain with the authorities until an investigation was complete
Russian police officers stand by the the flowers near the Wall of Grief monument laid in memory of Alexei Navalny
Just two minutes after the time Navalny was reported to have died – 2.17pm – Russia’s prison service put out a statement revealing his passing.
Four minutes after this, a Telegram channel controlled by the Kremlin claimed he had died of a blood clot, and just seven minutes later Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, was talking to the media about it.
On top of this, Kremlin officials are alleged to have told the opposition leader’s mother that he died from ‘sudden death syndrome’ as she visited the brutal IK-3 Polar Wolf penal colony where he was being held yesterday.
Navalny’s allies say they were denied the opportunity to see the body, which would remain with the authorities until an investigation was complete.
Navalny’s lawyer, who arrived in the town of Salekhard with Navalny’s mother on Saturday, was allegedly told by the prison that the body was being held in the morgue.
But a contact at the Salekhard morgue later denied the body was there – leaving yet more question marks around the shock death of one of Putin’s most fierce critics.
‘It’s obvious that the killers want to cover their tracks and are therefore not handing over Alexei’s body, hiding it even from his mother,’ his team said in a post on Telegram.
More to follow.
