New Delhi:
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny may have been killed with a single blow to the heart – an old method used by the KGB – a human rights activist has claimed. This comes as Russian officials have yet to release the body of Navalny, who died suddenly a week ago at the Arctic penal colony where he had been serving prison sentences totaling more than 30 years.
“It is an old method of the KGB special forces,” Vladimir Osechkin, founder of the human rights group Gulagu.net, told the Times of London, citing a source in the penal colony.
“They trained their agents to kill a man with one blow to the heart, to the center of the body. It was a hallmark of the KGB,” Osechkin said.
The KGB was a feared Soviet-era internal security service. It was officially disbanded on December 3, 1991. It was later succeeded in Russia by the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and what would later become the Federal Security Service (FSB).
He claimed the 47-year-old had been kept outside in the harsh sub-zero temperatures for hours before the fatal attack to weaken his body.
“I think they first destroyed his body by leaving him in the cold for a long time and minimizing blood circulation,” Osechkin said, citing an unknown source who worked at the prison. “And then it becomes very easy to kill someone in a matter of seconds, if the officer has any experience with that.”
According to a report, the body of Vladimir Putin's most vocal critic showed “signs of bruising,” an anonymous paramedic told an independent news channel.
The paramedic said the bodies of those who die in prison are usually taken directly to the Foreign Medicine Bureau, “but his body was taken to a clinical hospital for some reason.” The “bruises” on his body resembled the marks you get from being restrained during an attack, he added.
Alexei Navalny's team has claimed that Russian authorities told his mother he would be buried in the penal colony unless she agreed to let him rest without a public funeral.
Navalny's mother Lyudmila has been demanding for days that authorities hand over his body for burial in a way that allows his friends, family and supporters to pay their respects.
Navalny's family and supporters have accused Putin of killing him, an accusation the Kremlin has angrily rejected. He had survived a poisoning attempt in 2020 and years of harsh treatment in prison, including long periods in solitary confinement.
Putin, who never mentioned Navalny in his speeches, has not yet commented on his death.
Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny's widow, released a six-minute video on Saturday demanding that Russian authorities release his body for burial and accusing a “demonic” Putin of “torturing” his corpse.
According to Russian officials, Navalny “became unwell after a walk and lost consciousness almost immediately.” “All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, but they did not yield positive results. Ambulance doctors declared the convict dead. The causes of death are being determined,” they claimed.
His mother was informed of the death on February 16 at 2:17 PM local time (2:37 PM IST). She was told the cause of death was “sudden death.”
“Sudden death syndrome” is a vague term for several cardiac syndromes that cause sudden cardiac arrest and death.