– Navalny did not complain about his health and “actively spoke and presented arguments in defense of his position”, says a court in the city of Vladimir east of Moscow, according to the RIA news agency. Navalny’s German lawyer also says today that he seemed “healthy and strong” during the hearing. This was the day before he allegedly lost consciousness after a walk. It is the prison authorities in the region who have now announced that he is dead. The Kremlin also confirms the death, but says it has no information on the cause of death. Several Russian sources learn that the cause of death is a blood clot. This is rejected by Alexander Polupan, who has previously dealt with Navalny. He believes such a diagnosis can only be made after an autopsy, writes the BBC. On video link Navalny participated via video link in the Russian court session on Thursday and it was here that his German lawyer saw the last pictures of him. – He made a good and strong impression as usual, says Nikolaos Gazeas to the newspaper Koelner StadtAnzeiger, and he emphasizes that he is shocked by the news the day after he saw him on video. The Russian prison service today released a video showing Alexei Navalny on a video link the day before he allegedly died. Photo: AP According to Gazeas, a Russian lawyer colleague had visited him on Wednesday, while another is currently on his way to the prison to find out more about the circumstances surrounding his death. During yesterday’s court hearing, he is said to have complained about the frequent fines he had to pay and asked the judge to send him some money, as “my own will soon be empty, thanks to your decisions”. In January, the opposition politician shared a photo of a small cordoned-off prison yard where he could take an early morning walk in the cold. According to his lawyer, Navalny liked to have an ironic tone in his messages and spoke earlier this year about the “wonderful fresh air that blew into the air yard despite the wall” and at the same time stated that it was only 32 degrees below zero. Talked to his mother Navalny’s mother also talked to her son this week, and she also reports on a man who showed no signs of illness. – He was in good spirits, happy and alive, Ludmila said of her meeting with her son on Monday this week, according to the opposition newspaper Novaja Gazeta. His wife is now in Germany attending a security conference there. She is shocked by the news. – You have all heard the terrible news. I wondered what to do. So I thought about what Aleksei would have done. He would have stood here where I stand now, says his wife Julia Navalnaya. – If this is true, I want to tell Putin and his friends that this will not go unpunished, she says further, and asks for support from the international community to fight against the Russian authorities. Julia Navalnaya as she arrives on stage in Munich today. Photo: AP Moved around Navalny has long been placed in various penal colonies and prisons in several places in Russia. Now last in what is being discussed about penal cell IK-3 just outside the town of Kharp in the far north of Russia. On 9 January this year, he is said to have been put in what Russian media call a “punishment cell” after having “refused to identify himself in the form”. He is also said to have “not reacted to educational work and does not draw the right conclusions for himself”, according to the opposition newspaper Novaja Gazeta. At the end of January, Navalny was given a new sentence – ten days in a “punishment cell” due to the fact that he again “misrepresented himself”. Yesterday, according to Novaja Gazeta, it became known that he was once again placed in a “punishment cell”. This time for 15 days. What then became the reason for the punishment is unknown, according to the newspaper. “Aleksej left the punishment cell on February 11, and today, the 14th, he was sent there again. They gave me 15 days. This is the 27th penal cell, and in total he will spend 308 days there, says Navalny’s friend Kira Yarmysh to Novaya Gazeta. Strong critic Navalny was the most high-profile critic of President Vladimir Putin when he was poisoned in August 2020. He returned to Russia after treatment in Germany and was then arrested. He has until now been imprisoned in a penal colony in Yamal-Nenets, far to the north in central Russia. He has served several different sentences totaling more than 30 years. Among other things, he was convicted of extremism, embezzlement and money laundering. His supporters believe the charges were politically motivated. The prison Navalny was in has been described as a terrible place in maximum isolation. With several hundred kilometers of tundra on all sides of the city, it is considered a place from which it is impossible to escape, writes the Moscow Times, which visited the place during Christmas last year. The prison Alexei Navalny was in was located just outside the town of Kharp in the far north of Russia.
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