Navalny ally says authorities threaten to bury Kremlin critic on prison grounds

Alexei Navalny unexpectedly died last Friday in an Arctic penal colony (AP)

An ally of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny said that Russian authorities have given his mother a deadline to agree to forgo a public funeral or else they will bury him on prison grounds.

Lyudmila Navalnaya was given three hours to accept a proposal for a private funeral outside the public eye, Mr Navalny’s close associate Ivan Zhdanov said on social media, in what appears to be another dark twist in the almost week-long stand-off with the authorities to retrieve the politician’s body.