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Alexei Navalny's mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, has again been threatened by a Russian state investigator. She has been given three hours to decide on a secret funeral without a public memorial service, according to a tweet by Navalny's spokesperson Kira Yarmysh.
If she refuses to give in to the investigator’s demands, Navalny’s body will be buried at the IK-3 penal colony where he served his sentence.
“An investigator called Alexey’s mother an hour ago and gave her an ultimatum. Either she agrees to a secret funeral without a public farewell within 3 hours, or Alexey will be buried in the colony. She refused to negotiate with the IC, as they are not authorised to decide how and where her son should be buried. She is demanding compliance with the law, according to which investigators are obliged to hand over the body within two days of establishing the cause of death. According to the medical documents she signed, these two days expire tomorrow. She insists that the authorities allow the funeral and memorial service to take place in accordance with normal practice.”
Lyudmila Navalnaya was issued a similar threat yesterday. In a video appeal, she said officers from Russia's Investigative Committee threatened to bury Alexei in secret and then take her to his grave.
“[The] investigator Varapayev openly told me: ‘Time’s not on your side, the bodies are decomposing’” Navalnaya quoted one of the officers as saying.
The Insider identified the officer that made the threat as Alexander Vladimirovich Varapayev — a convicted criminal.