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Main Witness in Nemtsov Murder Gets Protection After Receiving Threats

Slain Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov's companion Anna Duritskaya, who was with him on a bridge near the Kremlin when he was murdered, speaks during a Skype interview to online news channel Dozhd in this still image from a TV Rain video on Mar. 2, 2015.

Anna Duritskaya, the main witness in the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov in Moscow last week, has been put under security measures in her native Ukraine after receiving threats, the Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office said Friday.

Duritskaya, a 23-year-old model who returned to Kiev late Monday after being questioned by Russian investigators in Moscow, filed a complaint with Kiev police over anonymous death threats she had received while staying with her parents, according to an online statement by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General.

Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin has ordered all necessary measures to be taken to protect the witness, and has opened an investigation under his personal control, the statement said.

Duritskaya was walking with Nemtsov across the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge next to the Kremlin last Friday when the opposition leader and political activist was shot in the back.

In interviews with Russian media Monday, Duritskaya said she had not seen Nemtsov's killer.

"I didn't see anything," she told Dozhd TV channel. "When I turned around all I saw was a light-colored car, I didn't see its license plate or make."


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