Russian officials have handed down lengthy jail sentences to the killers of outspoken Putin critic Boris Nemtsov.
The gunman was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and his four accomplices got sentences from 11 to 19 years for the 2015 murder, The Independent reported. The men were found guilty of the killing last month.
Nemtsov’s allies and family members continue to maintain, however, that the investigation into his death was a coverup and that those actually behind the politician’s death are still at large, according to The Independent.
Nemtsov was shot in the back four times with a pistol while walking across a bridge near the Kremlin with his girlfriend in February 2015. He had just given a radio interview in which he accused the president of lying about Russia’s takeover of Crimea.
Prosecutors had asked that the gunman be given a life sentence, but the judge chose the shorter term for unknown reasons, The Independent reported. Prosecutors also said the men had been promised 15 million rubles (over $249,000) for killing Nemtsov, but did not say how they got that information or who promised to pay the men.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied any involvement in Nemtsov’s death, and analysts conceded the Russian president had more prominent critics than Nemtsov at the time of his death, The Independent reported.
Allies of Nemtsov have questioned why Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov was not investigated as having a role when the gunman was an officer in his security forces and the accomplices were also Chechen.
A sixth suspect in the killing died while police tried to arrest him.
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