Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


        Russian Opposition Leader Nemtsov Remembered at Moscow Ceremony

   by VOA News

   Mourners on Tuesday paid respects to Russian opposition leader Boris
   Nemtsov, the fierce Moscow critic who was gunned down just steps away
   from the Kremlin last week.

   Friends and family carrying red flowers shuffled by the open casket of
   the 55-year-old Nemtsov, whose body is lying in state at the Andrei
   Sakharov rights center in Moscow.

   U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Tefft was among the foreign delegates at
   the ceremony. The Russian delegation included Deputy Prime Minister
   Arkady Dvorkovich.

   Nemtsov's body is to be buried later Tuesday at Moscow's Troekurovskoye
   cemetery.

   The 55-year-old ex-deputy prime minister was shot four times in the
   back by unidentified assailants last Friday as he walked across a
   bridge with his female companion.

   President Vladimir Putin has promised a full investigation into the
   shocking murder, which many opposition activists said was reprisal for
   Nemtsov's criticism of Moscow.

   At least two European officials have been prevented from traveling to
   Moscow for Nemtsov's funeral.

   Poland's foreign ministry says Senate Speaker Bogdan Borusewicz was
   refused entry to Russia in retaliation for recent European Union
   sanctions against Moscow.

   Russia also denied entry to Latvian lawmaker Sandra Kalniete, a senior
   member of the European Parliament. Kalniete said she was insulted by
   the ban, but is "really proud to be labeled an enemy of Russia."

   Another Kremlin critic, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, will
   be unable to attend the ceremonies after a Moscow court on Monday
   dismissed a motion that he be released from prison early. Navalny is
   serving a 15-day sentence for handing out leaflets promoting a protest.

   Tens of thousands of people marched in central Moscow Sunday to mourn
   Nemtsov, who is just the latest Russian opposition figure to be killed
   under mysterious circumstances.

   Nemtsov's girlfriend, Anna Duritskaya, commented publicly Monday for
   the first time since the murder. But the 23-year-old Ukrainian model
   said she did not see the killer.

   Duritskaya said in an interview with Russia's independent Dozhd
   television she had dinner with Nemtsov and they were then crossing the
   Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge in the direction of his apartment when he
   was killed shortly before midnight.

   She said the assailant had approached them from behind and that a
   light-colored vehicle drove away from the scene of the shooting, but
   that she didn't see the assailant nor remember the make or license
   plate of the car.

   Investigators said they are looking into several possible links for
   Nemtsov's slaying, including an attempt to destabilize the state,
   Islamic extremism, the Ukraine conflict and his personal life. They
   have offered a reward of nearly $50,000 for any information.

   The Ukrainian foreign ministry tweeted late Monday that Duritskaya had
   left Russia and was returning to her family in Kyiv.

   In an interview with Reuters news agency at the White House Monday
   afternoon, President Barack Obama said Nemtsov's murder is a sign of a
   worsening climate in Russia where, he said, civil rights and media
   freedoms have been rolled back in the last several years.

   "This is an indication of a climate at least inside of Russia in which
   civil society, independent journalists, people trying to communicate on
   the Internet, have felt increasingly threatened, constrained. And
   increasingly the only information that the Russian public is able to
   get is through state-controlled media outlets," said Obama.

   Obama said he had called for a full investigation into the incident.

   He said the killing is "part of what has allowed, I think, Russia to
   engage in the sort of aggression that it has against Ukraine.''
     __________________________________________________________________

   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/russian-opposition-leader-nemtsov-to-
   be-buried/2665574.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/russian-opposition-leader-nemtsov-to-be-buried/2665574.html