Russian state media reported the pardon on Saturday. Nemtsov’s colleague and friend Ilya Yashin, who was recently released from a group of political prisoners, called the decision a “mockery of the memory” of the slain protester.
“Putin has pardoned Eskerkhanov, the criminal of Kadyrov robbery. He participated in the murder of Nemsov, and now he is going to kill in Ukraine, which Boris defended against Russian aggression,” Yashin wrote in a comment on Facebook.
Assassination of Boris Nemtsov. Clues lead to Chechnya
Eskerganov, a former policeman, was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2017 for complicity in murder with four other criminals. The court recognized Tsar Dadaje as the direct executor, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison. According to the investigation materials, Eskerganov collected information about Nemtsov, took other criminals by car and helped them hide after the murder.
55-year-old Boris Nemtsov was shot on the evening of February 27, 2015 in the center of Moscow, near the Kremlin. The opposition is one of Putin’s fiercest critics. He blamed the aggressive policy on Ukraine in particular.
Lawyers representing the Nemtsov family believed the real culprits had been caught, but the investigation did not identify the organizers and principals of the murder. Nemtsov family lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, “traces lead to the immediate circle of Ramzan Kadyrov”, assesses the president of Chechnya.