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        Report: Suspect in Nemtsov Killing Served in Chechen Police Unit

   by Reuters

   One of the men detained on suspicion of killing Russian opposition
   figure Boris Nemtsov served in a police unit in the Russian region of
   Chechnya, Russian news agencies quoted a law enforcement official as
   saying.

   Nemtsov was shot dead on the night of Feb. 27 within sight of the
   Kremlin walls, in the most high-profile killing of an opposition figure
   in the 15 years that President Vladimir Putin has been in office.

   Some associates of Nemtsov, a 55-year-old former deputy prime minister
   who became an ardent Putin critic, said the Kremlin stood to gain from
   his death. Russian officials have denied involvement and Putin has
   condemned the killing.

   A security official in the southern Russian region of Ingushetia where
   some of the suspects were detained on Saturday said that one of them,
   Zaur Dadayev, had served for about 10 years in the "Sever" battalion,
   which is part of the interior ministry of the neighboring region of
   Chechnya.

   Brothers detained

   The official, Albert Barakhayev, was quoted by state-controlled Russian
   news agencies as saying two other people had been detained: Anzor
   Gubashev and his brother.

   Russian media reports said the brothers were of Chechen origin, with
   relatives in Chechnya and Ingushetia, and had been working in Moscow.

   The Investigative Committee, the state agency leading the
   investigation, said it was applying to a court for the formal arrest of
   five people in connection with the killing, spokesman Vladimir Markin
   said on Twitter.

   There were no details on the identity of the other two. Investigators
   had previously only mentioned two suspects, Zaur Dadayev and Anzor
   Gubashev.

   A Reuters reporter outside Moscow's Basmanny court, where a hearing on
   their formal arrest was scheduled to take place, saw two buses, with a
   police escort, drive through the rear entrance of the courthouse.

   One at a time, three men were escorted from the busses into the
   building, the reporter said. Each had their hands bound in front of
   them, and they were bent double with a masked man standing on each side
   of them.

   Their faces could not be seen as police were blocking the entrance to
   the court's yard, so it was not possible to determine if the three men
   were the suspects.

   Those behind killing

   Nemtsov's associates say they will only be satisfied if prosecutors
   track down whoever orchestrated the killing, and not just the people
   who pulled the trigger.

   Low-level foot soldiers, in many cases from Chechnya and neighboring
   regions, have been put on trial in several previous high-profile
   killings in Russia, while it has never been firmly established who
   ordered the crimes.

   It was not immediately clear if Dadayev is a serving member of the
   "Sever" battalion, or has left. There was no confirmation from
   authorities in Chechnya.

   Chechnya is a mainly Muslim republic on Russia's southern border. It
   has been the scene of violent separatist insurgencies over the past two
   decades.

   It is now firmly under the control of its leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, a
   former rebel who now pledges loyalty to Moscow and has considerable
   autonomy over the running of the region, including its security
   services.

   There have been cases in the past where low-level employees of Russian
   law enforcement agencies have been prosecuted after moonlighting for
   organized crime groups.

   Russia's Interfax news agency, quoting a Chechen law enforcement
   source, said a man killed in a standoff with police in the Chechen
   capital late on Saturday was wanted by police in connection with
   Nemtsov's killing.

   The agency said when police arrived at an apartment block, the man
   threw one grenade at officers and then blew himself up with a second.

   Nemtsov's closest aide told Reuters that the day before his death he
   clandestinely scribbled a note to her about how he was investigating
   the involvement of Russia's military in fighting in east Ukraine.

   Some of Nemtsov's friends have asked why the police took so long to
   arrive at the scene of the crime and how someone could fire six shots
   at him and get away in an area monitored by closed-circuit television
   footage.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/report-suspect-in-nemtsov-murder-serv
   ed-in-chechen-police-unit/2671978.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/report-suspect-in-nemtsov-murder-served-in-chechen-police-unit/2671978.html