The mother of Alexei Navalny, the leading Russian opposition figure who died at a remote Arctic penal colony, has sent a video message to Russian President Vladimir Putin pleading for his body to be released.
In the one-minute video, Lyudmila Navalnaya stands outside the "Polar Wolf" prison camp where her son had been jailed while serving a decades-long sentence. Russian authorities said the 47-year-old suddenly died there on Friday while taking a walk.
"I appeal to you Vladimir Putin, because the solution to this problem depends only on you," Navalnaya says.
"Let me see my son. I demand that Alexei's body be released immediately so that I can bury him in a humane way."
Navalny's family and aides say they have yet to even be told where his body is being kept.
