Russia: All five men in custody charged with Nemtsov’s murder

Nemtsov March of Mourning

(Interfax – March 16, 2015)

All five men held in custody in connection with the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov have now been formally charged, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax news agency has reported.

Three men – Shadid Gubashev, Khamzat Bakhayev and Tamerlan Eskerkhanov – were charged on 16 March, the agency reported the same day. Two others, Zaur Dadayev and Anzor Gubashev, were charged earlier.

The law-enforcement bodies have amended the murder charges brought against the men in custody: crime committed “for personal or financial gain” has been changed to “on the motives of political, ideological, racial, ethnic or religious hatred,” the agency quoted a source close to the investigation.

“The investigators so far do not possess concrete information about who could have commissioned the crime but this does not mean that this version has been ruled out,” the agency sources said.

Earlier Interfax sources said that the trail of the person commissioning the murder could lead to abroad.

According to preliminary information, Nemtsov was shot dead by Dadayev, a former deputy commander of the Chechen battalion “Sever”, the agency quoted its source as saying. “However, this can be asserted with 100 per cent certainty when the murder weapon is found,” the agency source said.

A source familiar with the investigation said that, according to the investigation, Nemtsov’s murder had been carefully planned. The investigators think that the suspected killer, Zaur Dadayev, made use of the noise made by the street cleaning machine on the bridge, moved close to Nemtsov, shot him in the back and was probably picked up by car in which were brothers Anzor and Shadid Gubashev.

 

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