Russian prosecutors overrule decision not to launch probe into Navalny’s death

Regional prosecutors in the Arctic Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district have overruled the decision of the regional Investigative Committee not to open a criminal case into the sudden death in prison of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny in February, close Navalny associate Ivan Zhdanov announced on Tuesday.

Zhdanov attached a document provided by the Prosecutor General’s Office in the Arctic Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district, where Navalny died, which said that the initial refusal by the regional Investigative Committee to launch a probe into Navalny’s death had been ruled “unlawful”.

The case materials will be forwarded to the major crimes unit of the Investigative Committee in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district, the document said.

“This doesn’t mean that they will open a criminal case,” Zhdanov wrote. “It means that the probe will continue. They will either think about how to present Navalny’s murder in a different way. Or the ‘investigation’ will simply never end,” he added.

The initial document, received by Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya in July, stated that Navalny’s death hadn’t been “criminal in nature”, but rather caused by “arrhythmia” brought on by a “combination of illnesses” ranging from hypertension to herpes.

Both Navalnaya and Navalny’s personal doctor Alexander Polupan have expressed their scepticism at the Investigative Committee’s diagnosis, with Polupan openly calling its findings “bullshit”.

Last month, over 180 Russian doctors signed an open letter to Russia’s Investigative Committee demanding that a criminal case be opened into the conduct of prison staff at the Arctic penal colony where Navalny died, suggesting that the opposition leader’s death came “as a result of negligence” and was brought on by a lack of medical care.