Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader, shot dead in Moscow

Boris Nemtsov, a leading Russian opposition politician was shot dead in Moscow city center at about midnight on February 27.  Unidentified persons fired at Nemtsov from a passing car while he was walking along the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky bridge with Anna Duritskaya, a citizen of Ukraine. The assassins escaped.

The Investigation Committee of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case on murder and illegal trafficking in weapons charges. The police have found all the three white sedans caught by the surveillance cameras on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky bridge, but the owners proved not implicated in the crime.

The investigation is considering three investigative leads. First, the murder is linked to Boris Nemtsov’s girlfriend having an abortion. According to Life News, model Anna Duritskaya traveled from Moscow to Switzerland to have an abortion not long ago. The investigators suppose another motive for the crime could be the funds the murdered politician received from abroad. The police are searching Boris Nemtsov’s apartment at present. They have confiscated the materials that may be useful for the investigation to reveal the motives for the murder.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin extended his condolences to the family of the assassinated politician saying Nemtsov’s murder had all the signs of being ordered and is of an exclusively provocative character. The president charged the Federal Security Service, the Interior Ministry, and the Investigation Committee to set up a special group to investigate the crime.

Medical examiners say Nemtsov died from internal bleeding. Four out of the six bullets fired at Nemtsov reached the target. The politician was wounded in the head, heart, liver and stomach – all from the back. “The bullets damaged his ribs, hit vital organs and death occurred within two minutes. The first bullet hit the head from the neck, the second reached the lung damaging two ribs, the third bullet wounded him in the heart, while the fourth one wounded the liver and stomach,” the source reports. “By preliminary data, the reason of the death was internal bleeding and cerebrum damage.”