Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin's most vocal critic, dies in jail

Alexei Navalny, Russia’s significant opposition leader and Vladimir Putin’s most vociferous critic, has died on Friday in a jail where he was serving a 19-year-term, Russia’s federal penitentiary service.

How did Navalny’s die?

As per a statement released by Russia’s federal penitentiary service, “Navalny felt bad after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness. Medical staff arrived immediately and an ambulance team was called. Resuscitation measures were carried out which did not yield positive results.”

“Paramedics confirmed the death of the convict. The causes of death are being established,” the statement added.

However, a report by RT citied source in Russian service saying Navalny had a blood clot.

Navalny was moved to an Arctic penal colony last year. The prison is considered to be one of the toughest in Russia where most detainees, who are held, have been convicted of serious crimes.

The Kremlin said Putin has been informed of Navalny’s death. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov referred questions to the Federal Penitentiary Service, adding that the cause was currently unclear.

The Russian opposition leader fell into a coma in 2020 after a suspected poisoning using novichok by Russia’s FSB security service. He was shifted to Germany for treatment.

Navalny recovered and returned to Russia in January 2021, where he was arrested on a parole violation charge and sentenced to his first of several jail terms that would total more than 30 years.

Before his arrest, Navalny campaigned against official corruption and organised major anti-Kremlin protests.

Why was Navalny jailed?

A court in Moscow jailed Navalny on 2 February, 2021, for violating the terms of a 2014 suspended sentence for fraud.

The case against him was based on his failure to report regularly to police during 2020. His legal team said was absurd, as the authorities were aware of him getting emergency treatment in Berlin for the Novichok nerve agent attack in Siberia.

Navalny argued that between January and August 2020, before the poisoning, he had reported to police twice a month. He dismissed the fraud case as fabricated in order to silence him.

The case concerns alleged embezzlement from a Russian subsidiary of French cosmetics firm Yves Rocher and from a timber firm, Kirovles. His brother Oleg was jailed for three-and-a-half years and Alexei got the same term, but suspended.

That 2014 fraud conviction itself was condemned in 2016 by the European Court of Human Rights, which found that Navalny’s rights had been violated, and it ordered Russia to pay him and Oleg compensation. But later the Russian Supreme Court upheld the conviction.

In March 2022, his sentence was increased by nine years after he was found guilty on new charges of embezzlement and contempt of court. He was moved to a new penal colony at Melekhovo, around 250km (150 miles) east of Moscow.

In August last year, Navalny received an additional 19-year sentence after being accused of forming and funding extremist organisations and activities. Before the trial, he said he would be subjected to a “Stalinist” style sentence designed to frighten other opponents of Putin, but urged Russians to resist “villains and thieves in the Kremlin”.

With inputs from agencies