Hearse drivers are refusing to drive Russian Alexei Navalny’s body to his funeral, according to a spokesperson for the dissident who died in suspicious circumstances.
“Unknown people are calling mortuaries and threatening them if they accept to take Alexei’s body,” Kira Yarmysh told BBC News.
Earlier this week, she said several funeral homes refused to take his body.
The funeral is scheduled to take place on Friday at a church just outside Moscow and the service would be streamed on Navalny’s YouTube channel. The ceremony is scheduled at 2 p.m. local time (6 a.m. ET)
Navalny’s former chief of staff Leonid Volkov told BBC News he was worried the funeral would be marred.
“I’m afraid that surprises are to be expected tomorrow … frankly, as I speak now, I don’t know if they will actually allow people to say goodbye to Alexei,” he said.
The opposition leader’s widow Yulia Navalny echoed that sentiment in a speech on Wednesday in which she also blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for her husband’s death.
Earlier public attempts to memorialize Alexei Navalny were brutally shut down by Russian police, resulting in hundreds of arrests.
The dissident and opposition leader died earlier this month in a Russian prison inside the Arctic Circle, reportedly on the verge of prisoner swap deal.
Navalny, 47, had been serving a 19-year jail sentence on charges of supporting extremism. His Anti-Corruption Foundation group was branded an extremist organization by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repressive government.
