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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Russian court convicts five of murdering Boris Nemtsov |
| 2017-06-30 |
| [Al Jazeera] A Russian jury has found five men guilty of organising and carrying out the contract killing of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov two years ago, after a trial his allies say failed to unmask the masterminds. Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister and fierce Kremlin critic, was gunned down in central Moscow as he walked home with his girlfriend late in the evening of February 27, 2015. The murder just steps from the Kremlin in the Russian capital was the most high-profile political killing in the capital since President Vladimir Putin rose to power some 17 years ago. The 12-person jury ruled after the third day of deliberations that defendants Zaur Dadayev, Shadid and Anzor Gubashev, Temirlan Eskerkhanov and Khamzat Bakhayev - all ethnic Chechens from Russia's volatile North Caucasus - carried out the hit as part of an organised gang. Murdered Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov remembered at rally Dadayev, a former officer in an interior ministry battalion in Chechnya, was found guilty of firing the four fatal shots. The Gubashev brothers, Eskerkhanov and Bakhayev were found guilty of helping to organise and carry out the killing. The jury's decision was reached by majority vote after they first failed to come to unanimous decisions on the long list of charges against the defendants at the end of ten months of hearings. |
| Posted by:Fred |