Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died from "sudden death syndrome" and his body will not be handed over to the family until a probe is carried out, Russian authorities told his mother, according to the director of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, The Hill reported Sunday.
Russian prison officials said Friday that Navalny, who was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism, died at age 47 at an Arctic penal colony. He had recently been moved there, Russia's highest security level facility, from a different prison.
Navalnys mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, on Saturday visited the prison where her son died and received an official death note that stated his time of death as 2:17 p.m. local time on Friday, Navalny's spokesperson Kira Yarmysh wrote on X.
Yarmysh added that an employee of the colony said investigators from a Russian intelligence agency picked up Navalny's body and took it to Salekhard, a town about 30 miles south of Kharp, where the prison is located.
Yarmysh said the morgue was closed when Navalny's mother and lawyer went there over the weekend.
And when the lawyer called the phone number that was on the door of the morgue, he was told that Navalny's body was not there.
Yarmysh told Reuters, "Right now we don't have access to the body, and we don't know for sure where it is. And we demand that the Russian authorities immediately give Alexei's body to his family."
Several leaders around the world have criticized Moscow for Navalny's death and directly blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for it, charges the Kremlin denies.
Information from Reuters and The Associated Press was used in this report.