Evgenia Kara-Murza, the wife of jailed Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, has no doubts who was responsible for the death of Alexei Navalny.
"Make no mistake, this was a political assassination and murder carried out in cold blood, and the man responsible is Vladimir Putin," she told 7.30.
"But this is still something too huge to process. And I believe that millions of Russians who have been absolutely horrified by Alexei's death have not yet been able to process it."Ms Kara-Murza says if you look at the history of Russia under Putin, it's no real shock that Navalny did not survive his prison sentence.
However, his team believe he was murdered and say the fact that authorities have refused to release his body to his family suggests there is a cover-up."So far, the Russian authorities have offered two possible reasons for Alexei's death. And that's sudden death syndrome or blood clot," she said. "He was everything Putin wasn't — physically brave, amusing, funny, charismatic, all of those things," Sweeney said."I think tyrants hate being mocked. He was on the blackest of blacklists, and he wasn't scared. He stood up to Putin and he stuck it to him.
He says his friend was a man of immense courage, who returned to his country at great risk to himself after recovering from his poisoning.
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