Alexei Navalny's death not criminal, authorities say, as mother is denied access to his body

Alexei Navalny's team said on Saturday they were told a first investigation into his death had found nothing criminal, which they dismissed as a "lie".

"Only an hour ago, the lawyers were informed that the investigation had been concluded and that something criminal had not been established," Kyra Yarmysh, the late Russian opposition leader's spokesperson, wrote on social media platform X.

"They literally lie every time, driving us around in circles and covering their tracks," she added.

In other posts, she said that his lawyers were told that as his cause of death has not yet been established, "a new histological examination has been carried out", that the results would only be available next week and that his body "will not be handed over to his relatives until the investigation is complete".

It is currently unclear where his body is with his mother, who travelled to the "special regime" penal colony above the Arctic Circle he had been held in, unable to see him.

She had been informed - after receiving an official message at the colony that her son had died on February 16 at 2:17 p.m. local time - that his body had been transferred by investigators to Salekhard.

But when she, and his lawyer, arrived at the morgue, it was closed. "The lawyer called the phone number which was on the door. He was told he was the seventh caller today. Alexei's body is not in the morgue," Yarmysh wrote.

“We demand that Alexei Navalny’s body be handed over to his family immediately,” she also wrote.

Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service reported that Navalny felt sick after a walk and became unconscious at the penal colony in the town of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,900 kilometres northeast of Moscow. An ambulance arrived, but he