Boris Nemtsov case: Russian mourners view body of slain opposition leader
Although his influence in mainstream politics vanished, Nemtsov remained visible as one of Putin’s most vehement critics. Just a few hours before his death, he conducted a radio interview in which he denounced Putin for “mad, aggressive” policies in the Ukraine crisis.
His body lay in a coffin in the Sakharov Center in central Moscow, named after the late Soviet-era dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov. The funeral and burial are to be held in the afternoon.
Among those attending the viewing were U.S. Ambassador John Tefft and former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who has gone over to the opposition. Russian deputy prime ministers Sergei Prikhodko and Arkady Dvorkovich and Yeltsin’s widow Naina also came, according to Russian news reports.
“They probably know that if they don’t come, then at some point people will be coming for them,” Irina Khakamada, co-leader of a liberal party in parliament with Nemtsov, said of the Russian government officials.
Veteran human rights activist Lev Ponomarev echoed the view of many opposition figures that the strong nationalism and intolerance of dissent that has risen up under Putin and is on display on Russian state-controlled television has coarsened society and encouraged violence.
“In this atmosphere of violence and hate, these killings will only continue,” he said.
Many commentators said that, like other key opposition leaders, Nemtsov was constantly being shadowed by police, so it would be hard to imagine that his killing could go unnoticed by them. Some noted that Nemtsov died on the newly established holiday commemorating the Special Operations Forces, honoring troops who swept through Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, setting the stage for its annexation by Russia a year ago.
Nemtsov’s killing was the biggest political assassination in Russia since 2006, when another Kremlin foe, journalist Anna Politkovskaya, was shot to death in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on Putin’s birthday. Five Chechens were convicted in the case last year, but it has remained unclear who ordered the killing.
Some observers speculated that certain members of a hawkish, isolationist wing of the government could have had a hand in Nemtsov’s death, possibly counting on it to provoke outrage abroad and further strain Russia’s ties with the West.
via NorthEast Calling http://ift.tt/1AURrtE
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