Russian authorities have refused to launch a criminal investigation into the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in prison, his wife Yulia Navalny said today.
Navalny, the fiercest political critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime, died in February in a remote prison colony in the country's north while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges.
Russian officials have not released many details about Navalny's death except that the opposition figure died of natural causes after a walk, strongly denying involvement in both the poisoning and his death.
Yulia Navalny announced on social media that she received a letter from Russian investigators detailing the cause of her husband's death.
She stated that she was told that Navalny died from a combination of "a dozen different diseases." Investigators told her that the opposition figure finally died of an arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat.
Navalny disputed Russian officials' version of events and said her husband did not show any symptoms of heart disease when he was alive.
"That's a lie. They're hiding what really happened that day... when Aleksey got sick, he wasn't taken to the emergency room but back to the prison cell. There he died alone," she said.
The letter states that officials will not open a criminal investigation into the death of the opposition member because no offense was committed.
"As long as Putin is in power, there will be no investigation," Navalny said, vowing to continue investigating the circumstances of her husband's death.
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