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Updated at 10pm
A FORMER CHECHEN police officer has claimed he was tortured into confessing to the murder of Russian opposition activist Boris Nemtsov.
Zaur Dadayev’s claims have been supported by a member of the Kremlin’s human rights council, prompting an argument with investigators.
The statement from the group – a body close to President Vladimir Putin and often criticised as window-dressing for authorities – angered Russia’s powerful Investigative Committee who accused it of meddling in their probe and threatened to investigate its motives.
Amnesty International said the allegations raised “very serious questions about the fairness of these proceedings and fuels speculation about a possible state-sanctioned cover-up.”
Nemtsov (55), a former deputy prime minister who became an outspoken Putin critic, was shot four times in the back as he walked along a bridge near the Kremlin on 27 February in the most shocking assassination of an opposition leader during Putin’s 15 years in charge.
Investigators rounded up five suspects within a week and presented them to a Moscow court.
Electric shock
Dadayev, a decorated former deputy commander of a police unit in troubled Chechnya, allegedly signed a confession and was charged with the murder on Sunday alongside Anzor Gubashev, who worked for a private security company. The two men and three other suspects were remanded in custody.
However he has now insisted to the council’s Andrei Babushkin that he is “innocent” and only made the admission under duress.
“There are reasons that lead us to believe Zaur Dadayev confessed under torture,” Babushkin told AFP after a visit to the suspect’s Moscow prison cell on Tuesday.
We cannot confirm that he was tortured as we are not investigators, but we did find numerous wounds on his body.
The accusations were denied by a separate monitoring commission, which visited the prison on Wednesday and said there was no sign of bodily harm on the suspects.
Anton Tsvetkov, head of the Moscow Public Observer Commission, said: “Zaur Dadayev says he was tortured, including with electric current, but the body parts he showed bore no evidence of any electrical current impact or burns.”
Maruane Felllini !!!
Robert Sheehan from Love/Hate would be fantastic.
cool hopefully unlike the recent project on Michael Jackson, they will not select a white man to play Phil. Love the guy, long overdue.. You Can Always Hear The King’s Call…..
@Dáithí Ó Raghallaigh: why would you choose a black actor to play 2001 Michael Jackson who was white as white can be
@M: Because the whole point of acting is that you’re pretending to be somebody who you’re not.
@M: not white.
Find Smiley Bolger and ask him who is the Belfast Philo? (He is frontman art of a Lizzy tribute act that hail from Belfast I think?) They often plays Vibe for Philo gigs – has to be seen to be believed !
Have seen him with 2 guitarists Phil Edgar And Brian Grace – (don’t know if all 3 are in the same tribute act but hav seen them play together).
But my god – u’d swear it was Lizzy live & Dangerous in sound AND in appearance.
@Barry Ringwood: your thinking of Thin Az Lizzy, from Dundalk (not sure if they are still together) all you had to do was close your eyes an Philip was on stage,…so like them
@Tony Gordon: is it dundalk? 1 Guitarist is called Phil Edgar – and most of times ive seen them at vibe for Philo gigs – they had another guitarist called Brian Grace (whom I think is a dub and I don’t know if he’s ‘in’ the band properly or just jams with them…
But if that’s them… Yes. .. absolute class
@Tony Gordon: Bang on, it was as close as close could be to hearing Phil Lynott sing… Looked nothing like him at all, but they totally sounded like Thin Lizzy
@Tony Gordon: Thin Az Lizzy are back on the road again in the same lineup as before. Johnny Fox is the frontman. True enough he’s the best sounding Phil Lynott I’ve ever heard.
What about Chris Kamara from sky sports
Wasn’t Gary Dourdan billed to play him at one point?
@Neil Murray: he was indeed
@Neil Murray: Lenny Kravitz aswell at one stage. This idea has been knocking around for years, let’s hope they make a runner of it this time.
Morgan Freeman would be brilliant as Philo
@Stouts O Shea: nah too old I would have thought.
Many old guys going -Hmmmm??
Age: no (x3)
Race: no
Height: no
Hair /lack of: no (how did that happen)
mentality: yes
Have a Dublin cousin who’s the image of him. He talks just like him, plays bass good enough for far away shots, has the same swagger and by the end of a three week med holiday is almost the same colour.
Would a touch of dark makeup be wrong?
Is it more racially incorrect to change his skin-tone in order to be ethnically correct or is it more ethnically wrong to use a non-irish actor of similar skin-tone to play a proud Irish man?
Hmmm…
Hope they cast a white perosn just for all the hilarious outrage that would follow.
Get Brush Shiels on the panel to choose he knew Lynott the best
Sounds like another job for Aiden ‘Littlefinger’ Gillen, you can’t go wrong with Aiden Gillen.
@Ron North: or Brendan Gleeson? He’s a great actor, he could pull it off.
@O Swetenham: A strong second choice there.
His son Macdarragh (Dara) Lambe should be offered to play the part, he’s Phil’s double
They’re going to have to go southbound
Kwaku Fortune is the man for this.
Marty Morrissey
Apologies for couple of typos…. frontman ‘art’???
His Son Macdarragh (Dara) Lambe should be asked to play the part, he’s Phils double
@Aideen Murphy: agreed, he is the image of Phil. But I’d say he’s a bit too old. He’s almost 50 according to Wikipedia and Phil died at 36…
Wesley Snipes.
have your say