Russian investigators to indict 5 men for Nemtsov’s murder

Investigators have brought final charges on Tuesday against four suspects in the murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin told TASS on Tuesday.

ZhannaNemtsova, Nemtsov’s daughter, said she was disappointed with the investigation.

Nemtsov was due to lead a major opposition march and release a report about alleged Russian military involvement in the Ukraine conflict.

The committee also named Ruslan Mukhudinov, the personal driver of senior Chechen police officer Ruslan Geremeyev, as the mastermind behind the killing.

Lawyers for Nemtsov’s family say prosecutors are using Mukhudinov to deflect attention from the high-ranking people who really masterminded the murder.

Russian courts have sentenced shooters in other high profile political murders like that of journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006, but critics say that those convicted of past assassinations were the patsies of larger conspiracies, scapegoated in order to silence critics and weaken Russia’s opposition.

After Nemtsov’s shooting Putin blamed extremists and protesters who he said were trying to stir internal strife in Russian Federation. “I am… a suspect if you listen to some liberal devils who accuse me of killingNemtsov”.

The suspects will have time to review the charges after the probe is completed, according to a statement on the federal Investigative Committee’s website. In recent years, Nemtsov published several reports on state corruption, including one on misspending in the preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, his hometown.

“If investigators did their work seriously and were not shielding the criminals, Kadyrov and his entourage would have been questioned long ago”, said Yashin, saying he deemed it an “open question” whether the Chechen leader was involved.

Dadayev said he confessed to the killing after he was arrested because he was afraid.

“History is repeating itself”, he said as the mercury dipped below minus seven degrees Celsius and an icy wind from the Moskva river below whipped up.