Russia responsible for Navalny’s death, UN rights expert says

FILE PHOTO: People lay flowers at the grave of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny following his funeral at the Borisovskoye cemetery in Moscow, Russia, March 1, 2024. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

GENEVA — The United Nations (UN) human rights expert on Russia said Monday that the death of opposition politician Alexei Navalny was Moscow’s responsibility as he was either killed in prison or died from detention conditions that amounted to torture.

Russian authorities said Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, died on Feb. 16 in an Arctic prison of natural causes. Navalny’s wife Yulia Navalnaya has accused Putin of having him killed, an accusation the Kremlin rejects.

“So the Russian government is responsible, one way or another, for his death,” Mariana Katzarova told Reuters on the sidelines of an event on Russian political prisoners at the UN in Geneva. She cited long periods of solitary confinement which she said amounted to about 300 days, which could have caused “a slow death over several years.”

Katzarova, who was appointed last year and has not yet been granted access to the country, also said other detainees in Russia could suffer the same fate as Navalny. She was “very worried” about opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza.

“Ever since the death of Alexei Navalny, there is no day passing without asking myself, who is the next Navalny?” she said. “And there will be a next Navalny, for sure, with this level of repression.”

READ: Explainer: Alexei Navalny’s death: What do we know?

Katzarova, a Bulgarian former investigator for Amnesty International, is one of dozens of independent human rights experts mandated by the UN to report on specific themes or crises, though the only one reporting on one of the five states with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Civil society groups say that around 600-1,000 political prisoners are being detained in Russia for voicing opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine or refusing to fight in it. Moscow rejects criticism of its domestic rights record.

READ: Alexei Navalny died his own death, Russian spy chief says

In her address at the UN meeting earlier, where Nobel Prize-winning Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov also spoke, Katzarova called for more pressure on Moscow to release political detainees and investigate Navalny’s death.

“We cannot afford to just be insulted by the human rights situation in Russia,” she told the packed room of diplomats. “It’s up to you to take steps, real steps for the protection of these political prisoners.”