Five found guilty of involvement in Russian opposition leader’s murder
A jury at a Moscow court found the suspected triggerman guilty of murdering Mr Nemtsov.
Five men have been found guilty of involvement in the assassination of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.
The verdicts bring to a close a trial that Mr Nemtsov’s allies believe failed to bring the alleged masterminds behind the killing to justice.
Mr Nemtsov, a top political opponent of President Vladimir Putin, was shot late at night in 2015 as he was walking across a bridge just outside the Kremlin. His brazen murder sent shockwaves through the Russian opposition.
A jury at a Moscow court found the suspected triggerman, a former officer in the security forces of Chechnya’s leader, guilty of murdering Mr Nemtsov, Russian news agencies reported.
Four other men were found guilty of involvement in the killing. It will now be up to the judge to sentence the five men.
Mr Nemtsov’s allies have criticised the investigators for stopping short of investigating the possible role of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and top Chechen officers in the killing.
When the now-convicted gunman, former officer Zaur Dadayev, was arrested shortly after the killing, Mr Kadyrov vehemently defended him as a “true patriot”.
Mr Nemtsov’s family have petitioned investigators to look into Mr Kadyrov’s possible involvement and to question Ruslan Geremeyev, commander of the police unit in which Dadayev served.
The police commander was summoned to testify, but he failed to show up. Investigators told the court last year that they visited Mr Geremeyev’s property in Chechnya but “no one opened the door”.
