The mother of Alexei Navalny and his lawyers have been prevented from entering a morgue in Russia where her son’s body is reportedly being kept, his spokeswoman said on Monday.
"One of the lawyers was literally pushed out," Kira Yarmysh wrote on X, adding that staff at the morgue in Salekhard would not answer a question about where Mr Navalny's body was.
Lyudmila Navalnaya, 69, had travelled with members of Mr Navalny’s legal team to the town of Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets region, some 1,200 miles north-east of Moscow, after receiving notice that her son had died at a penal colony there on Friday afternoon.
Mr Navalny’s bruised body was said to have been found in a hospital morgue two days after he died in a nearby prison.
An unnamed paramedic told Russian opposition media there were bruises on the opposition leader’s head and chest when his body was brought into the Salekhard District Clinical Hospital.
“Such injuries, described by those that saw them, appear from seizures,” the paramedic told the exiled Novaya Gazeta newspaper.
Meanwhile scores of protesters have been jailed after paying tribute to the opposition leader at memorials across Russia.
Hundreds of people in dozens of cities streamed to ad-hoc memorials and monuments to victims of political repression with flowers and candles to pay tribute to the ant-corruption campaigner and fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin,
In 39 cities, police detained 366 people by Sunday evening, according to the OVD-Info rights group that tracks political arrests and provides legal aid. Earlier in the weekend, the group reported 401 detentions in two days, but later updated the number and said that their count “may change both up and down over the next few days” as information is being verified.
More than 200 arrests were made in St Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, the group said. By Sunday evening, court officials in St Petersburg reported rulings ordering 154 of those detained to serve from one to 14 days in jail.
The sudden death of Mr Navalny, 47, at a remote Arctic penal colony was a crushing blow to many Russians, who had pinned their hopes on Putin’s fiercest foe.
Mr Navalny remained vocal in his unrelenting criticism of the Kremlin even after surviving a nerve agent poisoning and receiving multiple prison terms.
Mr Navalny’s team said on Saturday that the politician was murdered and accused authorities of deliberately stalling the release of the body.
His mother and lawyers received contradictory information from various institutions they visited in their quest to retrieve the body.
Meanwhile, Mr Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, published a picture of the couple on Instagram on Sunday in her first social media post since her husband’s death. The caption read simply: “I love you.”
Mr Navalny’s death is expected to be discussed by MPs later, as Commons returns after recess.
The Government is currently weighing up its response to the death of the jailed opposition leader, as Western capitals heaped blame on Putin.
Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron has already signalled that there could be fresh sanctions against Russia officials, amid questions for the Russian authorities over how exactly Mr Navalny died.
The row over his death comes as Ukraine and its allies prepare to mark the two-year anniversary of the Russian invasion.
Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy told the BBC on Sunday Labour would try to “plug” gaps in the current sanctions regime if it wins power.
It remains unclear what response the Government and other allies may take against Putin, with Moscow already facing heavy sanctions since the start of the war in Ukraine.
The UK has backed using seized Russian central bank assets currently held in the West as one way of financing the reconstruction of Ukraine.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday, with the death of Mr Navalny raised in the conversation alongside aid for Ukraine.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said the pair “underscored the importance of providing continuing support to the Ukrainian people”.
She said: “The Prime Minister welcomed the recent announcement that the EU will provide 50 billion euro support to Ukraine, and outlined the work the UK is doing through our security cooperation agreement.
“The Prime Minister and President Von der Leyen expressed their outrage at the death of Alexei Navalny, and underscored the utmost importance of holding those responsible within the Russian system to account.”
It comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky struggles to convince Republicans in Washington to facilitate a major funding package for Kyiv.
Lord Cameron has urged lawmakers to pass the 60 billion dollars (£47.6 billion) package.
