Russian Prosecutor Urges Guilty Verdict in Nemtsov Killing
Russian opposition leader was gunned down steps from the Kremlin in 2015
The prosecutor at the trial of five men charged with killing Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov in Moscow in 2015 has urged jurors to find them guilty. Wrapping up the state's case Thursday, Maria Semenenko said their guilt was undisputed. She also told the official Itar-Tass news agency that investigators had used special equipment during a re-enactment of the crime that placed the defendants' mobile phones at the site of Nemtsov's death when the shots were fired. "Step by step, using the process of elimination, the investigators uncovered the entire chain of the crime, thanks to that expertise," she told Itar-Tass. The defense argued that no one could prove a motive for the killing. Nemtsov was gunned down just steps from the Kremlin in February 2015. He was a popular opposition leader and a strong critic of Russian support for the rebels in eastern Ukraine. Five suspects from Chechnya or Ingushetia were arrested. One of them confessed but later recanted, claiming he had been tortured. A former Chechen security official, Ruslan Mukhudinov, is accused of paying the suspects to kill Nemtsov. He is at large.