Nemtsov Murder Mastermind Named

The site of the murder of politician Boris Nemtsov, who was killed on Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge in downtown Moscow
© Vladimir Astapkovich / Sputnik

Russia’s Investigative Committee has pressed final charges against the suspected murderers of prominent opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, including the hit’s suspected organizer Ruslan Mukhutdinov, currently at large and on the international wanted list.

The committee also said in the Tuesday statement that it plans to start a separate criminal probe against Mukhutdinov and a number of yet unidentified persons who could also have been involved in Nemtsov’s assassination.

Also on Tuesday, investigators pressed final charges of a contract murder by an organized group and illegal purchase, possession and carrying of firearms against the four detained suspects. They said that the suspects’ complicity in the killing had been confirmed by over 70 forensic experiments, testimonies of witnesses, CCTV records and many documents seized at the suspects’ places of residence.

The law enforcers added that the lawyers representing the prosecution and the defense would receive all case materials in January.

Earlier, Russian mass media revealed Mukhutdinov as the primary suspect in Nemtsov’s killing on these grounds he had been put on the Russian federal and international wanted lists. One of the suspected killers, Zaur Dadaev, reportedly told investigators that the murder was revenge for Nemtsov’s “negative comments on Muslims and Islam,” in particular, the public condemnation of Islamists who killed the journalists from the Charlie Hebdo magazine in France. However, a short time later Dadaev retracted his testimony. The other suspects denied any involvement in the case.

In comments on the Investigative Committee’s statement, the lawyer representing Nemtsov’s family said he disagreed with the main conclusion.

“Mukhutdinov is just one of the organizers and he is one on the lowest rank. He only used to work as a driver for [one of the suspects] Ruslan Geremeyev,” he told RIA Novosti.

A defense lawyer representing Zaur Dadaev told Kommersant radio that the charges against Mukhutdinov were “unfounded” and added that he and his client intended to demand a trial by jury. Russia allows jury trials in cases where the maximum punishment is 10 years or more. The final verdict is still made by the judge, but it cannot be harsher than the one passed by the jury.

Boris Nemtsov was a regional governor and a deputy PM under President Boris Yeltsin. In recent years he had turned into an opposition politician occupying a seat in the legislature of central Russia’s Yaroslavl Region.

In February this year Nemtsov was shot dead while crossing the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge, near the Moscow Kremlin. The assassination prompted a thousands-strong march in the Russian capital, with demands to find and punish the killers.

President Putin personally promised in a public address that everything would be done to punish those responsible for the organization and execution of the murder.

Nemtsov's Daughter Chased out of Russia

From BBC Europe

Zhanna Nemtsova has been working as a TV journalist
for an independent TV station in Moscow

A daughter of murdered Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov has accused pro-Kremlin media of spreading hateful propaganda, and says she has left Russia to live in exile.

Zhanna Nemtsova told the BBC that she had received threats, and this was one of the reasons behind her departure.

In a newspaper column, she said Russian propaganda echoed the era of genocide in Nazi Germany and Rwanda.

Mr Nemtsov, a leading Kremlin critic, was shot dead in Moscow in February.

Five suspects have been arrested over the killing, all of them from the Russian republic of Chechnya. However, the investigation has not established who ordered the murder, and one of the suspects has said he was forced to make a confession.

Several critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin have left the country over the last few years, complaining of intimidation and authoritarianism.

A close friend of Mr Nemtsov, Vladimir Kara-Murza, was admitted to hospital with acute kidney failure last month. Doctors have not established a cause and his father told the BBC he suspected poisoning.

Mourners pay tribute to Boris Nemtsov in Moscow on 7 March 2015
Boris Nemtsov was murdered as he walked along a bridge in central Moscow

In a column for business daily Vedomosti, Ms Nemtsova said state-controlled media in Russia had contributed to her father's death by labelling him and other opposition leaders "traitors".

She accused pro-Kremlin journalists of spreading hatred and intolerance, and urged the West to impose sanctions against those involved.

"Many of the texts of Kremlin-controlled media recall the rhetoric of African propagandists," she wrote.

"Putin's information machine - similar to those in Nazi Germany and Rwanda - is using criminal methods of propaganda, and sowing hatred which generates violence and terror."