Five found guilty in killing of Russian opposition head
MOSCOW — A jury convicted five men Thursday in the assassination of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on a bridge near the Kremlin two years ago, ending a trial that his supporters said had failed to bring the masterminds of the brazen killing to justice.
The shooting death so close to Red Square sent shockwaves through the Russian opposition, which had looked to the former deputy prime minister and fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin as a rising reformer who could negotiate with authorities.
After two days of deliberations at the end of a nine-month trial, the jury at a Moscow court found Zaur Dadayev guilty of killing Nemtsov. Dadayev was a former officer in the security forces of Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov.
Four other men were convicted of involvement in the killing.
Prosecutors said the four helped obtain the murder weapons and drove the shooter to the crime scene. Investigators said they never established who ordered Nemtsov’s assassination.
Prosecutors are expected to announce the sentences they are seeking at a hearing next week.
Nemtsov, 55, was shot late on the night of Feb. 27, 2015, as he was walking across the Bolshoy Moskovetsky Bridge, just outside the Kremlin. A few hours before his death, he had conducted a radio interview in which he denounced Putin for his “mad, aggressive” policies in the Ukraine crisis.
The images of Nemtsov’s body lying on the sidewalk with the domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral towering behind sent a chilling message to many in the opposition.