Russia: Navalny's widow pleads for return of politician's body

The widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Yulia Navalnaya, has accused President Vladimir Putin of breaking "every law, man and God's" by not giving over her husband's body.

“Give us the body of my husband,” Navalnaya said in a video released on Saturday.

“You tortured him alive, and now you keep torturing him dead. You mock the remains of the dead."

Navalny, 47, Russia’s most well-known opposition politician, unexpectedly died on February 16 in the penal colony, prompting hundreds of Russians across the country to stream to impromptu memorials with flowers and candles.

Authorities have detained scores of people as they seek to suppress any major outpouring of sympathy for Putin’s fiercest foe before the presidential election he is almost certain to win.

Russians on social media say officials do not want to return Navalny's body to his family because they fear a public show of support for him.

Russia has said that the the 47-year-old died of natural causes.