Russia’s most significant opposition leader for the past decade, Alexei Navalny, has died in prison inside the Arctic Circle, the prison service has said.

Seen as President Vladimir Putin’s most vociferous critic, Navalny was serving a 19-year jail term on charges widely considered politically motivated.

He was moved to an Arctic penal colony, said to be one of Russia’s toughest jails, late last year.

The prison service in the Yamalo-Nenets district said Navalny had ‘felt unwell’ after a walk on Friday.

He had ‘almost immediately lost consciousness’, it said in a statement, adding that an emergency medical team had immediately been called and tried to resuscitate him but without success.

‘The emergency doctors declared the prisoner dead. Cause of death is being established.’

Navalny’s lawyer Leonid Solovyov told Russian media he would not be commenting yet.

Source: Ghana News Agency