Putin critic Alexei Navalny was 'cold tortured' before death, claims humanitarian group

Alexei Navalny died after being "tortured" at a penal colony in northern Russia, says a human rights group that now wants his body to be examined independently abroad

Alexei Navalny suffered "tying, immobilisation, blocking of arms and legs and cold torture” before he died, according to a human rights group.

Russian Gulagu.net is pleading with his family to ensure samples from his body are independently examined abroad amid its claims of “violence” against the opposition leader in the Polar Wolf penal colony.

It is far from clear that the Russian authorities will permit any independent probe amid a macabre battle over his corpse. Navalny’s wife Yulia, 47, has claimed that the Russian opposition leader was murdered on Vladimir Putin ’s orders, and accused the dictator of satanism in failing to pass the body to his family - which has now happened..

“Today his body is the main proof of Putin’s crime against Alexei himself and against democracy in Russia,” said the human rights group. "Navalny’s body is the main evidence of his murder and subsequent manipulations with him in order to conceal this terrible crime committed to please the dictator Putin….

“If he were alive, we are sure that in a similar case he himself would say that the most important thing today is examination, research by the best experts in the world and the presentation of comprehensive evidence, and only after that - the funeral.

“We appeal to the family of Alexei Navalny taking into account our 12-and-half years of experience in independent investigations of torture and murder in the Gulag of the 21st century. We ask you to postpone the funeral and do everything possible to conduct a comprehensive examination outside the Russian Federation and are ready to provide assistance and assistance in this… Please make the right choice.

During the weekend, the Russian authorities U-turned to pass the body to Navalny’s mother Lyudmila, 69. She is now responsible for the logistical nightmare of bringing the body to Moscow.‌ The group appealed to the US and EU to support the family in “exposing this political murder” and to “organise the evacuation of the body for a full comprehensive post-mortem examination”.

‌It promised by Monday to publish “a complete list” of Russian jail officials who “are involved in the murder of Navalny and the functioning of the system of torture and humiliation in Russia.” The organisation gulagu.net - which boasts inside knowledge of Putin’s penal system - said it had already provided details to Navalny’s family of the “tying, immobilisation, blocking of arms and legs and cold torture” to which Navalny was subjected.

Russian media outlets today suggested that a funeral for Navalny could be held in Moscow on February 29 - as Putin makes his biggest speech of the year. Exiled journalist Bozhena Rynska said: “The authorities will prevent a people's funeral”.

This refers to an equivalent of the funeral of nuclear physicist and human rights campaigner Andrei Sakharov in 1989 when mourners flocked to bid him farewell and honour his opposition to Soviet totalitarianism.

They would “block off the area of any cemetery where a funeral is planned and, under various pretexts, prevent the crowd from entering, so as not to create the image of a people's funeral”. She said: “Now the presidential administration is discussing how to prevent a mass procession at the funeral of Alexei Navalny.”