Russia: Cameras ‘Turned Off’ During Nemtsov Murder

Russian authorities have reported that the cameras on Bolshoi Moskvoretsky are broken, which prevents them from identifying the person who shot opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on the streets of the Kremlin

The Interior Ministry said the CCTV surveillance footage does not exist, because “the recording of installed surveillance cameras in the area were either not very clear, or altogether absent, as they turned off at the time of repair.” The only footage that exists comes from a camera down the street. It is very blurry and grainy, but shows a gunman inside a car who did not kill him. From The Telegraph:

Instead, the assassin apparently hid in a stairwell leading off down from a bridge. As Mr Nemtsov passed, the killer emerged and began shooting at Mr Nemtsov’s back, killing him with four pistol rounds. He then hurriedly climbs into an arriving getaway car, and is driven away.

“You would have needed to coordinate very closely between Nemtsov and the car… It is clear that it was a very sophisticated and professional killing,” said security expert Andrei Soldatov.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) reported their cameras faced the Kremlin, which is only a few feet away from the bridge on which Nemtsov was shot. Yet, a spokesperson in Moscow’s information technology department claims the city’s cameras operated on the night of the murder.

Anna Duritskaya, a 23-year-old model from Ukraine, was with Nemtsov. However, she did not see the murderer. She saw a “light-coloured car,” but did not catch the brand or license plate. The Telegraph reports:

That footage suggests that a killer was lurking on a stairwell off the bridge in a well planned and tightly coordinated assassination.

A getaway car pulls up to collect the killer as soon as the deed is committed, indicating tight co-ordination and a high degree of planning. But the crucial moment of the killing itself is obscured by a passing snow-clearing vehicle.

Thousands gathered in Moscow on Sunday to participate in a memorial march for the former deputy prime minister. The crowd chanted and held signs calling for a “Russia without Putin.” It was originally meant to be held as a protest against Putin’s economic policies and Russian troops in Ukraine. On February 10, Nemtsov told Sobesednik.ru he was afraid Putin and his government were plotting to kill him. Numerous critics of Putin are dead, vanished, exiled, or in jail. The Associated Press documented the most well-known cases of opposition figures.