GENEVA   -   More than 40 countries on Tuesday demanded an independent inter­national investigation into the death of Rus­sian opposition leader Alexei Navalny -- and said President Vladimir Putin bore ultimate re­sponsibility. European Union members, the United States, Britain, Ukraine, Australia, Can­ada, New Zealand and Norway were among countries to voice out­rage over Navalny’s death at the UN Human Rights Council. Navalny, 47, who died in an Arc­tic prison colony, was laid to rest in Moscow on Friday, surrounded by crowds of defiant mourners who chanted his name. “We are out­raged by the death of the Russian opposition poli­tician Alexei Navalny, for which the ultimate responsibility lies with President Putin and the Russian authorities,” EU ambassador Lotte Knudsen told the UN rights body on behalf of 43 countries. “Russia must allow an indepen­dent and transparent international investiga­tion into circumstances of his sudden death.