MOSCOW, Russia: Alexei Navalny’s mother failed to retrieve his body after his death in an Arctic prison, a close aide to the dead Russian opposition leader says.
Kira Yarmysch said his mother Lyudmila was told his body would not be handed over until an autopsy was completed.
Navalny’s team believes the anti-corruption fighter was murdered on the orders of President Vladimir Putin.
A human rights organization said 300 Russians were arrested for paying tribute.
Western governments say the blame for the 47-year-old’s sudden death lies with Russian authorities, while foreign ministers from the G7 group of wealthy nations called on Russia to “urgently clarify” the circumstances surrounding it.
President Putin has not commented publicly since the Russian prison service announced on Friday that Mr Navalny had taken ill and died at the remote IK-3 prison beyond the Arctic Circle.
Russia’s foreign ministry said it rejected “biased and unrealistic” assessments of his cause of death that were made during a meeting with British officials on Saturday.
Navalny had been one of the most prominent faces of Russian opposition to the Putin regime and was serving a three-year sentence on politically motivated charges at the “Polar Wolf” penal colony in Kharp, about 1,900km north of Moscow.
His mother, Lyudmila Navalny, was reportedly told by the prison service that he died on Friday after he collapsed and became unconscious during a walk, his team said.
She visited the colony on Saturday and received an official notification stating the time of death at 2:17 p.m. local time (09:17 GMT), Yarmysch said.
Another Navalny ally, Ivan Zhdanov, said the activist’s mother had been told he died of “sudden death syndrome” – a general, vague term for a condition that causes sudden death from cardiac arrest with no apparent cause.
His team said Ms Navalnaya was told his body had been taken to the town of Salechard, near the prison complex, but the mortuary was closed when she arrived.
Prison officials reportedly told her that the first autopsy was inconclusive and a second one would have to be performed.
Meanwhile, more than 300 people were arrested after vigils and rallies across Russia, according to independent Russian monitoring group OVD-Info.
The G7 foreign ministers, who gathered at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, observed a minute’s silence in memory of the Russian activist.
British Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said the UK would “take action”.
