Navalny’s body located in Salekhard hospital, no autopsy yet performed

Novaya Gazeta Europe has learnt that the body of Alexey Navalny is in the morgue of the Salekhard District Clinical Hospital. As of Saturday, no autopsy had yet been performed, sources said.

Following Navalny’s sudden death on Friday, his body was initially taken to the town of Labytnangi, 36 kilometres away from the penal colony where he died in the village of Kharp in Russia’s far northern Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district. However, sources say that the body was later on Friday transferred to the District Clinical Hospital in the regional capital of Salekhard.

“Usually the bodies of people who die in prison are taken straight to the Bureau of Forensic Medicine on Glazkova Street, but in this case it was taken to the clinical hospital for some reason," said a paramedic in the Salekhard ambulance service.

“They drove him to the morgue, brought him in, and then stationed two policemen in front of the door. They might as well have put up a sign saying ‘something mysterious is going on here!’ Of course, everyone wanted to know what had happened, what all the secrecy was about and whether they were trying to hide something serious.”

It soon emerged that the body delivered had been that of Alexey Navalny and that his death was “not of criminal nature”, a term used to indicate that firearms were not involved. Word then spread that hospital pathologists had been banned from performing an autopsy, the source added.