Russia arrests 2 men over shooting of Boris Nemtsov
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TWO people have been arrested over the killing of Russian opposition activist Boris Nemtsov, who was gunned down near the Kremlin in a brazen assassination that shocked the country, the state security agency said yesterday.
The arrests came a week after the longtime critic of President Vladimir Putin was shot four times in the back as he strolled with his girlfriend along a bridge near Red Square in the capital.
“Two suspects were arrested today in connection with this crime, they are Anzor Gubashev and Zaur Dadayev, and the head of state has been informed,” said Alexander Bortnikov, head of the FSB federal security service.
The two men are from the Caucasus region, he said.
“The necessary operational and investigative procedures are continuing,” Bortinkov said.
The 55-year-old Nemtsov, a renowned anti-graft crusader who was Boris Yeltsin’s first deputy prime minister, was shot dead just two days before he was to lead a major anti-government rally.
But the protest march became a massive memorial, with tens of thousands swarming the streets of Moscow in the largest opposition gathering since a wave of anti-Kremlin protests in 2011-12.
Putin has promised an all-out effort to catch those responsible for an act he called a “provocation.”
Mystery remains
Theories have proliferated since the killing over why Nemtsov was targeted.
Some suggest he was assassinated for criticizing Russia’s role in the Ukraine conflict, others for his condemnation of January’s killings at the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly in Paris by Islamist gunmen.
Friends said Nemtsov had been working on a report containing what he described as proof of Russian military involvement in the bloody uprising in Ukraine.
Investigators suggested the killers wanted to destabilize Russia, which is facing its worst standoff with the West since the Cold War over Ukraine.
Following the arrests, lawmaker Nikolay Kovalev said information showed the suspects were paid hitmen. “The key is to find out who ordered this assassination,” he said.
A fellow opposition activist Ilya Yashin welcomed the development in the case, but called for more information.
“We hope the arrest ... is not an error but the result of good work by security forces, but for now it is hard to say,” he said.
“Quite frankly the execution of the investigation had not inspired any optimism,” he said.
Nemtsov was a key speaker at mass opposition rallies against Putin’s return to the Kremlin in 2012, and wrote several reports critical of corruption and misspending under Putin.
In 2013, he said up to US$30 billion of the estimated US$50 billion earmarked for the Olympic Games that Russia was to host in Sochi had gone missing, which the Kremlin denied.
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