Russian prosecutor determines that investigators’ refusal to open a criminal case over Alexei Navalny’s death is “unlawful”

The Prosecutor's Office of Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug — the region where opposition leader and political prisoner Alexei Navalny was serving his sentence at the time of his murder — has categorized the Investigative Committee’s decision not to initiate a criminal case over Navalny’s death as “unlawful.” Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, published a copy of the document on his Telegram channel.

According to Zhdanov, this development does not imply that the case will be prosecuted, but that the legal procedures will have to continue and Russian authorities “will have to think how to present the murder of Alexei Navalny in a different light” — or will drag the investigation out indefinitely.

In mid-August, Russia’s Investigative Committee offered an official ruling on Navalny's death, stating that it was not the result of criminal activity. As the cause of death, the agency cited a “combination of diseases,” and as its immediate trigger, a “violation of the rhythm and conduction of the heart.” This was how the Investigative Committee justified the refusal to initiate criminal proceedings.

Alexei Navalny was murdered on Feb. 16, 2024. However, it was not until Feb. 24 that his mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, received his body. On Feb. 22, it was revealed that the medical report of death shown to her said her son's causes of death were natural. Yulia Navalnaya, his widow, noted in August that his family had not yet been given his belongings. She argued that the killers were trying to “cover their tracks as much as possible.”

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• Russia’s Investigative Committee refuses to investigate Alexei Navalny’s death, claims he died of abnormal heart rhythm