Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was laid to rest in Moscow on Friday, surrounded by crowds of defiant mourners who chanted his name and blamed authorities for his death in prison. Despite a heavy police presence and official warnings, thousands of mourners paid their respects to the 47-year-old anti-corruption campaigner whose death in an Arctic prison was announced on February 16. Navalny’s body first lay in an open casket in a packed church in Maryino, southern Moscow, for a ceremony attended by his parents. Navalny was arrested in January 2021 when he returned to Russia after being treated in Germany for a poisoning attack. A civil ceremony allowing the general public to pay their respects to the body — common in Russia — was not allowed.