Media: Slain Putin’s opponent had been shadowed by Russian security agent

People gather on the anniversary of the death of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in St. Petersburg, Russia, Photo: AP/SCANPIX
Boris Nemtsov was a leading opposition figure in Russia, who criticised Russian President Vladimir Putin until being shot dead in Moscow in 2015. Investigative journalists have found that a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) shadowed Nemtsov’s trips in public transport for a year before his assassination, British public broadcaster BBC reports.
The investigation of leaked data of the FSB’s system of passenger information Magistral has been analysed by journalists at Bellingcat, The Insider and the BBC. They have found evidence that a former officer of the FSB, Valery Sukharev, has made 13 plane and train trips shadowing the movement of Nemtsov in 2014 and 2015.
«In a corrupt society like Russia, [Magistral] is a double-edged sword,» commented Christo Grozev, executive director of Bellingcat. «And it allows people like us to actually go and tail these same spies, these same FSB officers.»
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Bellingcat has previously used data from Magistral to investigate assassination attempts in Russia. Their investigations revealed evidence of the existence of a secret hit squad within the FSB, which has targeted opponents of the Kremlin, including Russian opposition figures Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza.
The Russian government has been consistent in denying that the assassination of Nemtsov and the assassination attempts of Navalny and Kara-Murza have been linked to the FSB. A court in Russia has found a group of Chechen men guilty of the killing of Nemtsov, but the group criticised the prosecution and trial process as unfair.