Russian opposition politician, co-chairman of the RPR-Parnas party Boris Nemtsov has been killed on Bolshoi Moskvoretsky bridge in the heart of Moscow at about midnight on Saturday, February 28.
Contract murder
Information about the murder of Nemtsov was immediately reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“Putin noted that this brutal murder has every sign of being a contract one and has solely provocative nature,” Peskov said.
“The president has ordered the leadership of the Investigative Committee, the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service to form an investigative group and keep the investigation of this crime under personal control,” he said.
“Dmitry Medvedev thinks that law enforcement agencies should do everything possible to define a whole list of people involved into the cruel murder of a famous politician,” prime minister’s spokesperson Natalia Timakova said.
Details of the crime
A criminal case on two counts of the Russian Criminal Code was opened into the murder. “The Russian Investigative Committee’s main investigations department for Moscow has opened a criminal case under Russian Criminal Code Articles 105 (murder) and 222 (illegal trafficking in arms),” Markin told Interfax.
Unidentified killers fired “at least seven or eight shots” at Nemtsov when the politician was walking on the bridge, Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said.
According to Markin, most experienced investigators and criminologists from the Investigative Committee’s central office have joined the investigation at the Investigative Committee chief’s instructions.
Investigators are examining a theory of a contract Nemtsov’s murder, Yulia Ivanova, a spokesperson for the Moscow department of the Russian Investigative Committee said. “Every theory is being looked into, including a contract murder,” Ivanova said.
Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev has taken the murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov under personal control, the ministry’s spokesperson Yelena Alexeyeva said.
Speaking about the details of the murder, she said: “Nemtsov was walking along the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky bridge with a female citizen of Ukraine. He was shot from a passing-by car.”
Nemtsov sustained four death wounds, Russian Interior Ministry’s spokesperson Yelena Alexeyeva told Interfax.
“Today Nemtsov got four death wounds on Bolshoi Moskvoretsky bridge,” Alexeyeva said, adding that six shells were found on the scene.
A type of a gun from which Nemtsov was killed will be established in ballistic tests, she said.
“Investigators are working with a girl who was with Nemtsov when he was killed. Psychologists of the Emergency Situations Ministry arrived to offer her necessary assistance,” she said.
An Interfax source with law enforcement agencies said that investigators have already got information from surveillance cameras which recorded three white cars, two Ford Focus and one Ford Mondeo, driving on the bridge. License plates of the cars have already been established, he said.
At the same time witnesses of the crime said that the car from which the shots were fired had no license plates.
Investigation and theories
Putin’s press secretary Peskov is certain that Nemtsov’s murder is a provocation. “Now it is too early to make any conclusion on the death of Boris Nemtsov, but one can be 100% sure that this is a provocation,” Peskov said in an interview with the RT.
“It is a provocation in the sense that it is absolutely clearly known that Boris Nemtsov is in opposition to the Russian authorities, that he is in opposition to the line that the Russian leadership pursues,” Peskov said in an interview with the Kommersant FM radio station.
Nemtsov had “rather tights contacts with various people in Kyiv. He went there often. This is not a secret. Everybody knows that,” Peskov said.
“And on the backdrop of let me say so events that opposition plans in the next few days, on the backdrop of such an emotional and tense atmosphere that we have given events in Ukraine, this can surely be a provocation,” the spokesman said.
Nemtsov, however, did not pose a threat to the Russian leadership, he said. “With all respect to Boris Nemtsov he did not pose any threat in the political sphere, what is meant of course is political, for incumbent Russian authorities and for Vladimir Putin. If we compare the level of popularity and ratings of Putin and the government on the whole, then on general Boris Nemtsov was quite an average citizen,” Peskov said.
A source with law enforcement agencies suggested that the murder of Nemtsov may be a provocation. “What is noteworthy is the fact that Nemtsov was killed in the run-up to an opposition march scheduled for March 1. The crime could be an act of provocation,” the source said.
Law enforcement agencies are looking into various theories of the murder of Nemtsov. “Of course theories related to Nemtsov’s political activity, his work as a deputy in the Yaroslavl region parliament, are looked into,” another source with law enforcement agencies told Interfax.
A business related theory of the murder is also studied, he said. “A theory of personal enmity is also under consideration,” the source said.
Nemtsov received threats on social networks, said Vadim Prokhorov, a lawyer for Nemtsov’s family. “Several months before today threat were made on social networks. We filed an application [with police] but there was no reaction,” Prokhorov told Interfax.
Nemtsov recieved murder threats, he stressed. “Let me underscore that this was several months ago,” he said.
Meanwhile, according to a source with law enforcement agencies, Nemtsov did not turn to police over murder threats.
A check revealed that Nemtsov sent no application to police over murder threats that he had received, the source said.
Nemtsov may have received threats related to jealousy, he said.
Condolences
The murder of Nemtsov sparked a broad public outcry both in Russia and Western countries. In particular, Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama expressed their condolences over the murder.
“The Russian president expresses deep condolences to relatives and friends of Boris Nemtsov, who died tragically,” Peskov said.
“We offer our sincere condolences to Boris Efimovich’s family, and to the Russian people, who have lost one of the most dedicated and eloquent defenders of their rights,” the statement issued by the U.S. White House reads.
Condolences also came from Medvedev, his press secretary said.
Sergei Neverov, a deputy speaker of the Russian State Duma from the United Russia party, has expressed his condolences over Nemtsov’s murder. “I express condolences to all relatives and friends of Boris Nemtsov. I knew him personally as a deputy prime minister in charge of the energy sector, as a State Duma member, as an incumbent deputy of the Yaroslavl region duma. This is an insolent crime committed in downtown Moscow. We, members of the State Duma, will closely follow the investigation,” the press service of the United Russia party quoted Neverov as saying.
Neverov does not doubt that the criminals will be caught and punished.
Ex-Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky treats the murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov as a personal grief.
