Five Chechen men have gone on trial in Moscow accused of killing the Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov.
Nemtsov, who was deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin, had been a fierce critic of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and was set to lead a protest on 1 March 2015, two days after he was shot four times in the back and killed as he walked across a bridge next to the Kremlin.
The defendants, who were allegedly contracted to carry out the killing, all deny the charges.
Nemtsov’s family fear that whoever ordered the hit will not be found. Their lawyers told the court that the investigation was neither effective nor comprehensive.
A lawyer for Zaur Dadayev, a former deputy commander of the Sever security forces battalion in Chechnya, who allegedly fired the gun, told the court that he was innocent. Dadayev reportedly confessed to the crime after he was detained, but later said he had been tortured.
Another suspect blew himself up with a grenade when police tried to arrest him in Grozny in March 2015. Prosecutors alleged the men had been paid 15m roubles (£190,000) to commit the crime, but the murder weapon had not been found.
Lawyers for Nemtsov’s family said the investigation was incomplete and not all those guilty were on the defendants’ bench. In several previous high-profile killings of government critics, assassins have been brought to trial, but not those suspected of contracting them.
The prosecution lawyer Olga Mikhailova told the court: “It’s necessary to establish those who ordered [the killing] … The motive for the crime has not been established.”
Mikhailova noted that Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Moscow leader of Chechnya and vocal critic of Russia’s liberal opposition, had not been questioned. She also noted that no video of the killing had been presented, despite it taking place next to the Kremlin.
Ruslan Mukhudinov, a driver for officers of the Sever battalion, who was charged by investigators with organising the crime, has not been arrested.
The defence lawyer Zaurbek Sadakhanov asked the court: “Can a driver order the deputy commander of the battalion to commit a crime?”
Nemtsov’s associates and supporters have previously said the charges against Mukhudinov suggested an attempt to cover up the potential involvement of higher-level Chechen figures.
Dadayev was a member of the Sever battalion until the day after Nemtsov’s killing and security experts said he could not have committed such a crime without approval from the Chechen leadership.
After the killing, Kadyrov praised Dadayev as a “courageous soldier” and “genuine Russian patriot”. This year, he posted a video of Mikhail Kasyanov, the leader of Nemtsov’s People’s Freedom party, in the crosshairs of a gun.
