A former law enforcement officer charged with involvement in the murder of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov has claimed that he was forced to confess to the killing. Zaur Dadayev, who was the deputy commander of the North interior ministry battalion in Russia's restive Chechnya republic, was detained in neighbouring Ingushetia and charged with the murder in Moscow this weekend.
During a court hearing to place him under arrest, a Moscow judge said Mr Dadayev had admitted the crime. Mr Nemtsov was killed by four shots to the back on February 27th as he walked across a bridge next to the Kremlin.
The Rosbalt news agency, quoting unnamed law enforcement sources, later reported that Mr Dadayev had told investigators he had killed Mr Nemtsov because of the politician’s allegedly negative statements about Islam.
Chechnya's strongman leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, said in an Instagram post on Sunday that Mr Dadayev had been "shocked" by the support for the Charlie Hebdo journalists killed in Paris over caricatures of the prophet Muhammad.
However, members of a prisoners’ rights monitoring group that visited Mr Dadayev and two other suspects in Moscow’s Lefortovo detention centre on Tuesday said they found evidence that the confession had been forced.
Mr Dadayev said he had been held in shackles for two days with a bag over his head, reported Yeva Merkachyova of the monitoring group and a journalist at the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets.
Mr Dadayev said: “They were yelling the whole time, ‘You killed Nemtsov?’ I was answering No. When I was detained, I was with a friend, my former subordinate Ruslan Yusupov, and they said that if I agreed they would let him go. I agreed. I thought that I would save him and they would take me to Moscow alive. Otherwise what happened to Shavanov would have happened to me.”
Beslan Shavanov, another member of the North battalion suspected of involvement in Mr Nemtsov’s murder, was killed when police attempted to detain him in the Chechen capital of Grozny last weekend. Law enforcement sources said Mr Shavanov threw a grenade at officers before blowing himself up with a second grenade.
Four other men from the Caucasus were arrested along with Mr Dadayev; one, Anzor Gubashev, was charged with involvement in the murder.
The monitoring group saw cuts and bruises on Mr Gubashev’s arms and legs and was told by his brother, Shagid Gubashev, also a suspect, that he was beaten after being detained.
Russia’s investigative committee said in a statement yesterday that it would summon Mr Merkachyova and another member of the monitoring group for questioning, claiming that they had violated the law by “asking about the materials of a criminal case” during a visit meant to assess the conditions of confinement.
Mr Dadayev’s reported confession has raised fears that he will serve as a patsy for more influential people who could have ordered the hit on Mr Nemtsov. (Guardian service)