Voice of America News reports: “A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin says allegations made by the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny that her husband was murdered are unfounded.

Yulia Navalnaya flatly said ‘Vladimir Putin killed my husband’ in an online video statement released Monday, days after the 47-year-old Navalny died at a penal colony in the Arctic Circle where he was serving a three-decade sentence.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov initially said he would not comment on Navalny’s accusations during a phone call with reporters Tuesday, but then dismissed them as ‘unfounded’ and ‘boorish,’ suggesting she made them during a moment of grief.

Peskov also said Navalnaya’s claims that authorities were holding her husband’s body for 14 days in order for traces of the nerve agent Novichok to disappear were nothing more than ‘unsubstantiated accusations’ with no evidence to support them…”