Prison time for Nemtsov’s hitmen
A RUSSIAN court yesterday handed lengthy jail terms to five Chechens convicted of the contract killing of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov, as his allies insisted the masterminds remained unidentified.
Shooter Zaur Dadayev was sentenced to 20 years in prison, while four accomplices were jailed for between 11 and 19 years by judge Yury Zhitnikov.
A jury in June found all five guilty of carrying out the hit for a fee of $250 000 (R3.31million) after a marathon trial that Nemtsov’s supporters say failed to unmask those who ordered the killing.
Nemtsov, a 55-year-old former deputy prime minister and fierce critic of Russin president Vladimir Putin, was gunned down just metres from the Kremlin in February 2015.
Those convicted – Dadayev, brothers Shadid and Anzor Gubashev, Temirlan Eskerkhanov and Khamzat Bakhayev – are all ethnic Chechens from Russia’s volatile North Caucasus.
Nemtsov’s family and supporters say that people close to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov who were linked to the murder have not been investigated.
During the trial, the judge refused a request to summon Kadyrov for questioning.
“Neither the organisers nor the masterminds were in the dock,” lawyer Vadim Prokhorov, representing Nemtsov’s daughter, said.
“Noone any longer doubts that the trail leads to the close circle of Ramzan Kadyrov.”
Nemtsov’s close ally, opposition politician Ilya Yashin, slammed the length of the jail term for Dadayev.
“We expected a life sentence for Dadayev. What is 20 years for a human life?” he said. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, meanwhile, was asked by a journalist whether it was likely the masterminds would be found.
“There is hope of this, undoubtedly,” he said. The convicted men have always denied they were involved in the killing and several retracted initial confessions they said had been made under torture.
Investigators have said the case is still ongoing over a suspected organiser who has fled.
The suspect, Ruslan Mukhudinov, was the driver of the Chechen interior ministry commander under whom the gunman Dadayev served.
Investigators said Mukhudinov had offered the defendants the money for the murder, but they never explained why the low- ranking official would have wanted Nemtsov dead or from where he got the funds.
In a statement after the sentencing at the Moscow district military court, Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said it was continuing to gather evidence on the organisers of the Nemtsov murder.