Anti-Kremlin activist Bill Browder stated he believes Alexei Navalny’s death was meant as a message to political opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin forward of elections subsequent month.
Dissident Navalny, who died Friday, had been serving a 19-year jail sentence on prices of extremism in Russia, which he vehemently denied.
World leaders reacted with dismay and suspicion to the death, with U.S. President Joe Biden saying “Putin is responsible.” Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Friday stated the West’s response to Navalny’s death was “self-exposing,” on condition that no forensic medical examination had been made obtainable on the time.
Browder, the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management and a pal of Navalny, additionally accused the Russian chief of being behind the death.
“Well this is happening before the presidential election and I should use that word lightly, they don’t do elections in Russia, it’s the fake election. But Putin has to create the sense of legitimacy and the last thing he wants to do is to have Alexei Navalny saying things from prison that gets people to not support Putin,” he advised CNBC’s Silvia Amaro Saturday on the Munich Security Conference.
William Browder, co-founder and chief government officer of Hermitage Capital LLP, speaks throughout a Senate Judiciary Committee listening to in Washington, D.C., July 27, 2017.ÂÂ
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
“And so I think this is a pre-election gambit that Putin is taking, kill his main opponent and send a message to everyone else that if you get involved with opposition politics you die, that’s the message.”
The jail service stated the reason for Navalny’s death was nonetheless to be established, and the Kremlin pledged to research his death.
A spokesperson for Russia’s international ministry wasn’t instantly obtainable for remark when contacted by CNBC.
A spokesperson for Navalny confirmed his death on Saturday after Russian media reported that he had died on Friday, citing the jail service of the Yamalo-Nenets area the place he was imprisoned.
Navalny — one in all Putin’s most vocal critics — was poisoned in August 2020 however survived. The Kremlin denied any involvement in his poisoning.