Cameron vows to hold those responsible accountable, as Navalny's mother takes legal action to recover his body.
The United Kingdom has imposed sanctions on six officials who oversee the Arctic penal colony where Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny died.
The sanctions, announced on Wednesday by British Foreign Secretary David Cameron, target the head and five deputy heads of the IK-3 prison colony in Kharp, in Russia's Yamal-Nenets region, who now face a ban on enter the UK and will have their assets frozen.
“Those responsible for Navalny's brutal treatment should have no illusions: we will hold them accountable,” Cameron said.
“It is clear that Russian authorities viewed Navalny as a threat and repeatedly tried to silence him.”
The UK is the first country to impose sanctions in response to Navalny's death, the Foreign Office said, describing him as “a political prisoner who dedicated his life to exposing the corruption of the Russian system, calling for a free and open political and holding the Kremlin accountable.”
🔴 SANCTIONED: heads of the Arctic prison colony where Alexei Navalny was murdered. pic.twitter.com/2FZn0W5b73
— Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (@FCDOGovUK) February 21, 2024
The sanctioned people include Vadim Konstantinovich Kalinin, who oversaw the prison where Navalny was held in solitary confinement for up to two weeks at a time, he added.
the penal colony about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 mi) northeast of Moscow It is considered one of the toughest in Russia. His inmates are convicted of serious crimes.
Russian authorities have said the cause of the sudden death of Navalny, 47, on February 16 in the colony, called “Polar Wolf,” is still unknown and have refused to hand over his body for the next two weeks. pending a preliminary investigation.
On Wednesday, Navalny's mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, filed a lawsuit in a court in the city of Salekhard, near the penal colony, challenging officials' refusal to hand over her son's body so he could be buried with dignity.
A closed-door hearing has been scheduled for March 4, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, posted a video on Monday claiming that authorities had not yet handed over his body because they were waiting for traces of the Novichok nerve agent to disappear.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has rejected allegations of a cover-up and President Vladimir Putin's alleged involvement as “baseless and insolent accusations against the Russian head of state.”
The UK's decision to take targeted punitive action against prison governors coincided with US plans to impose sanctions against Russia over the death of the Putin critic and the two-year war in Ukraine, which will be announced on Friday.
Cameron will attend the G20 foreign ministers' meeting in Brazil later on Wednesday and the Foreign Office said he will “take the opportunity to denounce Russia's aggression and its global impact directly to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.” “.
