MOSCOW: A court in the Russian Far North will next month hear a case brought by the mother of dead opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who has been prevented from seeing his body, his allies said on Wednesday.

Lyudmila Navalnaya has travelled to the remote IK-3 prison where her son died, but since Saturday, when she arrived, she has been prevented from seeing his body.

On Tuesday, she appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the release of her son’s body.

The TASS news agency reported the court had received a complaint on “illegal acts” and that the hearing would take place behind closed doors.

Navalny’s team said on social media the court in the Arctic city of Salekhard would consider the case on March 4 — more than two weeks after Putin’s opponent died.

‘Navalny was brave’

Meanwhile, former US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Navalny was “a very brave man” who probably should not have returned to Russia, without assigning any blame for the Russian opposition leader’s unexpected death.

Democratic President Joe Biden and other Western leaders have blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for Navalny’s death, as has Nikki Haley, who trails far behind Trump as his sole remaining rival for the Republican presidential nomination.

“Navalny is a very sad situation, and he is a very brave, he was a very brave guy because he went back. He could have stayed away,” Trump said during a town hall interview with Fox News in South Carolina.

“And, frankly, he probably would have been a lot better off staying away and talking from outside of the country as opposed to having to go back in, because people thought that could happen and it did happen. And it’s a horrible thing,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2024