“This confirms what we knew from the very beginning,” Lyudmila Navalnaya told reporters at her son’s grave in Moscow. “We knew that our son did not simply die in prison, but that he was murdered.”
She said the family hopes those responsible will be identified and held to account. “I think it will take some time, but we will find out who did this,” she said. “Of course we want this to happen in our country and for justice to prevail.”
Navalnaya added that those who ordered the killing were already known publicly, but said investigators must also identify “everyone who took part.”
Dozens of people gathered at Navalny’s grave on Monday to mark the anniversary.
Britain’s Foreign Office said Saturday that laboratory tests showed Navalny was poisoned while imprisoned in Russia’s Far North. According to the statement, samples taken from his body contained epibatidine, a toxic substance found in the skin of South American poison dart frogs.
“Only the Russian government had the means, motive and opportunity to use this deadly poison against Alexei Navalny during his imprisonment in Russia,” British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said in the statement.
Sweden, France, the Netherlands and Germany have also accused Russia of poisoning Navalny. Britain said it has referred the case to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, calling it a “flagrant violation” of the Chemical Weapons Convention, and urged Russia to immediately stop such actions.
Navalny was arrested at Moscow’s airport on Jan. 17, 2021, upon returning from medical treatment in Germany following an earlier poisoning attempt. He was sentenced a month later and sent to a penal colony, where Russia’s prison service said he died on Feb. 16, 2024.
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Source: PAP