The three other suspects who appeared in court on Sunday, accused of being accomplices, were Mr. Gubashev’s younger brother, Shagid, a truck driver; Khamzad Bakhaev; and Tamerlan Eskerkhanov, the official Tass news agency reported. All five were jailed for up to two months. 
 
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 The main question many Russians want answered is who ordered the brazen assassination of Mr. Nemtsov, 55, a former deputy prime minister turned opposition leader. Since the shooting took place within sight of the Kremlin, among the most heavily guarded sites in Moscow, opposition figures have accused the government of complicity, which it has denied. The Kremlin had previously suggested that the killing was the work of foreign spy agencies, but President Vladimir V. Putin later said it was politically motivated. 
 
 Mr. Nemtsov was one of the government’s most persistent critics and was due to publish a report that he said would reveal the involvement of the Russian military in the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin has called Russians fighting in Ukraine “volunteers.” 
 
 Given the intense national interest in the case, the arrival of the men in court was broadcast on state television. Uniformed security agents wearing black balaclavas frog-marched the suspects, bent over and wearing handcuffs, into the courthouse. Security forces established a tight cordon around it. 
 
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 A sixth suspect blew himself up with a hand grenade on Saturday night as the police closed in on his apartment in the southern city of Grozny, the capital of the Republic of Chechnya, the Interfax news agency reported. 
 
 The arrests and the police activity were centered in the troubled North Caucasus, where Russia has battled Islamic insurgents since 1994. At some point, Mr. Dadayev was the deputy commander of the North battalion of Interior Ministry troops in Chechnya, state-run news agencies reported, but it was not clear if he still held that post. He even won a commendation for bravery, according to Caucasian Knot, a website that focuses on news from the region. 
 
 The fact that Mr. Dadayev served in a force founded by Ramzan A. Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic and the man given a Kremlin mandate to run Chechnya as he liked after stamping out the insurgency, suggests that the plot was purely domestic, said Grigory S. Shvedov, the editor in chief of Caucasian Knot. 
 
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 “More security people are working in Chechnya than in any other region in Russia,” Mr. Shvedov said in an interview. “Why would anyone try to recruit a killer who works for Kadyrov? It would be long and complicated.” 
 
 Albert Barakhoev, the acting head of the Security Council in Ingushetia, a region that borders Chechnya, was quoted by the state-run news agencies, Tass and RIA Novosti, as saying the arrests took place there. 
 
 The two main suspects, Mr. Dadayev and Mr. Gubashev, are between 30 and 35, he said, and have been in Moscow for years. Mr. Gubashev had worked for a private security company in Moscow as a guard in a hypermarket, Mr. Barakhoev said. 
 
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 Ajmani Dadayev, the mother of Mr. Dadayev, told state television that the two Gubashev brothers were her nephews. 
 
 The Interfax news agency, quoting an unidentified source, said the police had been able to trace the first two men through cellphone activity around the location of the killing and from DNA evidence found in the suspected getaway car. 
 
 There have been a series of high-profile murders of government critics in Russia over the past two decades in which the mastermind was never identified. 
 
 Last June, for example, Moscow’s highest criminal court sentenced five men from the North Caucasus to prison for the 2006 murder of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a scathing critic of Kremlin policies in Chechnya and of Mr. Kadyrov. But her supporters say the identity of who ordered her killing remains unsolved. 

 (CNN) A sixth suspect in the shooting death of a top Russian opposition figure blew himself up after a standoff with police in the capital of the Chechen Republic, state-run television reported Sunday. 
 
 Beslan Shavanov, 30, was holed up in a building in Grozny when police arrived to arrest him Saturday afternoon, Russia 24 reported. Police surrounded the building and Shavano tried to escape, throwing a grenade at police officers before blowing himself up, the station said. 
 
 The news came as Russian authorities reported making five other arrests in connection with Boris Nemtsov's killing. 
 
 One of those arrested claims to have an alibi, according to Russia's Sputnik News 
 
 "At the time of the murder, I was at work as I usually am every day. There are many people, my colleagues, who will confirm this," the news agency quoted Tamerlan Eskerkhanov as saying in Moscow's Basmanny District Court. 
 
 Two of the suspects have been formally charged and three "remain under the status of suspects," court spokeswoman Anna Fadeyeva told Sputnik. 
 
 Nemtsov, one of President Vladimir Putin's most outspoken critics, was shot in the back on a Moscow bridge as he walked with his girlfriend near the Kremlin in late February. 
 
 Surveillance video showed someone darting from the sidewalk and into a nearby car right after Nemtsov collapsed. 
 
 Putin has been informed of the arrests in connection with Nemtsov's death, Russian media said, citing Federal Security Service director Alexander Bortnikov. 
 
 Two of the other suspects are Anzor Gubashev and Zaur Dadayev, Bortnikov said in a televised statement. The others are Ramzan Bakhayev and Shagit Gubashev, Anzor's younger brother, according to a Sputnik report that also said Dadayev was the only one of the five to plead guilty -- though to what crimes was not clear. 
 
 Bortnikov said those detained are from the southern region of the North Caucasus, which for years has been a hotbed of unrest and rebellion against Moscow. 
 
 The suspects 
 
 Dadayev had previously served as an officer in a Chechen police battalion, Albert Barakhayev, secretary of the Security Council of the Caucasian republic of Ingushetia, told the official news agency TASS. 
 
 Dadayev was the deputy commander of one of the Chechen Republic's Ministry of Internal Affairs groups, Sputnik reported, adding that Gubashev worked at a security firm in Moscow. 
 
 Gubashev was arrested between the town of Malgobek and the village of Voznesenovskaya, while Dadayev was arrested in the city of Magas, Barakhayev told TASS 
 
 The slain opposition leader's daughter, Zhanna Nemtsova, told CNN she is "not surprised both of them (are) of Caucasus origin. It was predictable." 
 
 Nemtsova said the only things she knew about the arrests came from media reports, as authorities did not contact her immediately. 
 
 Later Saturday, a southern Russian law enforcement official told state news agency RIA Novosti that two more men were arrested. 
 
 The two suspects in the second arrest were not named, but one of them was driving with Dadayev, and the other man is Gubashev's younger brother, Barakhayev said. Like Gubashev and Dadayev, those two suspects are also ethnic Chechens, according to Barakhayev. 
 
 Opposition blames Putin 
 
 After Nemtsov's shooting Putin blamed extremists and protesters who he said were trying to stir internal strife in Russia. 
 
 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing People follow the coffin of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov during a farewell ceremony in Moscow on Tuesday, March 3. Nemtsov, a vocal opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin's, was gunned down hundreds of feet away from the Kremlin on Friday, February 27. The assassination has spawned a flood of conspiracy theories; many suspect the Kremlin of either direct or indirect involvement. Putin condemned the killing and ordered three law enforcement agencies to investigate, the Kremlin said. Hide Caption 1 of 16 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing Dina Eidman, the mother of Nemtsov, left, and other relatives pay their last respects in Moscow on March 3. Hide Caption 2 of 16 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing People pay tribute to Nemtsov on Monday, March 2, at the scene of the opposition leader's shooting in Moscow. Hide Caption 3 of 16 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing People march in memory of Nemtsov in Moscow on Sunday, March 1. Hide Caption 4 of 16 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing A woman carries a sign with Nemtsov's image during a march in St. Petersburg, Russia, on March 1. Hide Caption 5 of 16 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing A woman leaves flowers in Nemtsov's memory during a march in central Moscow on March 1. Hide Caption 6 of 16 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing People march near the Kremlin in Moscow on March 1. Hide Caption 7 of 16 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing Watched by police in boats on the Moskva River, crowds march across a bridge in Moscow on March 1. Hide Caption 8 of 16 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing People gather to honor Nemtsov during a ceremony at Maidan, or Independence, Square in Kiev, Ukraine, on March 1. Hide Caption 9 of 16 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing A woman places a candle at a makeshift memorial in front of the Russian Embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania, on March 1. Hide Caption 10 of 16 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing People gather at Innocent Plaza in Paris on March 1 to remember Nemtsov. Hide Caption 11 of 16 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing A man carries a sign with Nemtsov's image March 1 in Moscow. Hide Caption 12 of 16 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing Marchers gather in central Moscow on March 1. Hide Caption 13 of 16 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing People march near the Kremlin in Moscow on March 1. Hide Caption 14 of 16 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing People light candles at a monument dedicated to political prisoners in St. Petersburg on Saturday, February 28. Hide Caption 15 of 16 Photos: World reacts to Boris Nemtsov's killing A group of European Union ambassadors to Russia lay flowers on February 28 at the site where Nemtsov was gunned down in Moscow. Hide Caption 16 of 16 
 
 Many opposition sympathizers and people close to Nemtsov have pointed the finger at Putin and the Russian government he leads. They note that Nemtsov -- the deputy prime minister under former President Boris Yeltsin -- is the latest in a list of Putin's opponents who have been killed or imprisoned. 
 
 Nemtsov had also been arrested several times for speaking against the government. 
 
 In her first TV interview since her father's death, Nemtsova told CNN that Putin shares "political responsibility" for her father's assassination. She spoke from Germany. 
 
 "I don't believe in the official investigation," she said Saturday. 
 
 Jailed or killed 
 
 Other opposition figures previously jailed or killed include Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist critical of Russia's war in Chechnya. She was gunned down at the entrance to her Moscow apartment in 2006. 
 
 There was also business magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who backed an opposition party and accused Putin of corruption. Khodorkovsky landed in jail after a conviction on tax fraud, which he said was a ploy to take away his oil company. The government rejected the claim. Putin pardoned him in 2013. 
 
 Former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned by a lethal dose of radioactive polonium, his tea spiked in a London hotel during a meeting with two former Russian security service men in 2006. 
 
 He had blamed the agency for orchestrating a series of apartment bombings in Russia in 1999 that left hundreds dead and led to Russia's invasion of Chechnya later that year. 
 
 The Kremlin has staunchly denied accusations that it or its agents are targeting political opponents or had anything to do with the deaths. 

 MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Two people suspected of involvement in the assassination of Russian politician Boris Nemtsov have been formally charged, Moscow's Basmanny District Court's spokesperson said. 
 
 "Three [individuals] remain under the status of suspects," Anna Fadeyeva told RIA Novosti. 
 
 The spokeswoman added that charges have been brought against Zaur Dadayev and Anzor Gubashev detained earlier in the week. 
 
 One of five suspects in the murder investigation of Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov claimed on Sunday to have an alibi that absolved him of the assassination. 
 
 "At the time of the murder, I was at work as I usually am every day. There are many people, my colleagues, who will confirm this," Tamerlan Eskerkhanov said in Moscow's Basmanny District Court. 
 
 Zaur Dadayev and Anzor Gubashev were detained early Saturday in connection with Nemtsov's assassination. Later in the day, reports emerged that two more alleged accomplices from southern Russia's Caucasus region have been apprehended. One of the detained, according to the region's Republic of Ingushetia Security Council spokesman, was Gubashev's younger brother. 
 
 Three suspects in the murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov pleaded not guilty, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported Sunday from Moscow's Basmanny District Court. 
 
 Earlier Sunday, Russia's Investigative Committee was requesting permission to arrest five people involved in Nemtsov's murder. 
 
 Nemtsov, 55, who once held high positions in the Russian government in the late 1990s, was fatally shot in central Moscow late last Friday. 
 
 Shortly after the tragedy, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian Investigative Committee, the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service to set up a joint team to investigate the murder. Investigators have been pursuing several motives behind Nemtsov's murder, including possible links to the Ukrainian crisis, contract killing or business-related disputes.
– Well, that seems settled: Not only has Russia charged two and detained three others in the murder of opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, but one of those charged has apparently confessed. And a sixth suspect blew himself up last night when police approached his apartment in Chechnya, reports Interfax via the New York Times. A judge announced in a Moscow court today that suspect Zaur Dadayev, a Chechen police officer who battled Islamic militants, had confessed that he helped kill the Vladimir Putin critic. But the second charged suspect, Chechen security guard Anzor Gubashev, pleaded not guilty. Russian authorities are yet to explain how the plot unfolded or what motivations lay behind it. The guy who blew himself up is said to be Beslan Shavanov, 30, who holed up in his Grozny apartment when police came to grab him, Russia 24 reports via CNN. With his building surrounded, Shavanov apparently tried to flee, tossing a grenade at police and blowing himself up. Russia's Sputnik News says that another suspect claims to have an alibi for the night Nemtsov was gunned down on a Moscow bridge: "At the time of the murder, I was at work as I usually am every day," says Tamerlan Eskerkhanov. "There are many people, my colleagues, who will confirm this." Nemtsov's daughter says she's not surprised that two of the suspects are from the Caucasus region, which has rebelled against Moscow for years: "It was predictable," she says. (See what Nemtsov was working on at the time of his murder.)