A prominent Russian human rights activist hopes the law enforcement agencies have succeeded in detaining the real killers of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov but expects that it will take a lot of time to fully solve the crime and doubts that those who ordered the killing will be found.
“I hope this is progress,” Lev Ponomaryov, the leader of the movement For Human Rights, told Interfax on Saturday.
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced the detention of Anzor Kubashev and Zaur Dadayev as suspects in Nemtsov’s killing earlier on Saturday.
“I believe law enforcement agencies should somehow prove to society that these two suspects really have some relation to the killing. The previous record of investigations into high-profile crimes shows that, while real killers were detained in some cases, there were other instances when people were detained unreasonably. But let’s hope that those who have been detained now are indeed responsible for the crime,” he said.
“But I personally don’t believe that the instigator will be found,” Ponomaryov said.
“Investigations into such crimes are usually a long process. It often happens that attempts are made to distract the investigation. This could be seen from the investigation into the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed in Moscow in October 2006, and the killers have been caught, but the instigator hasn’t been identified. When Natalia Estemirova was killed and her body was found on the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia in July 2009, the investigation into this case was simply obstructed,” Ponomaryov said.
Nemtsov was killed in the center of Moscow late on February 27.
