The State Duma has refused to conduct a parliamentary investigation into the murder of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was gunned down outside the Kremlin earlier this year, liberal lawmaker Dmitry Gudkov said Monday.
The refusal was based on the premise that federal law "prevents parliamentary investigations from seeking to establish the guilt of specific individuals involved in committing a crime," Gudkov, who had called for the inquiry, wrote on his Facebook page.
"Translated into Russian, this means: 'You will only know that truth that we will allow to be told to you,'" added Gudkov, posting a copy of the refusal signed by Vladimir Pligin, who heads the Duma's Committee on Constitution and State Affairs.
Nemtsov, 55, was shot dead while crossing the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge outside the Kremlin on the night of Feb. 27. The main suspect in the crime, Chechen-born Zaur Dadayev, initially admitted to committing the crime before saying that he had been tortured into making a confession.
Gudkov added in his Facebook post that the failure to carry out a Duma investigation into Nemtsov's death only heightened suspicion that state structures were somehow involved in the assassination.
He also noted that a law passed in 2005 requiring both the lower and upper chambers of parliament — the State Duma and Federation Council, respectively — to work together on investigations had resulted in a decrease in the number of parliamentary inquiries.
"When there was no law on parliamentary investigations, we actually had investigations. As soon as the law appeared, then they stopped," he said in the post.
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