http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/03/04/crossing-kremlin-nemtsov-latest-in-long-line-putin-critics-to-wind-up-deadEnemies of Vladimir Putin have a way of winding up dead.
Whether they are poisoned, gunned down on the streets of Moscow or blown to bits in their homes, people who have crossed or merely criticized the Russian president have turned up dead around the world. Putin political adversary Boris Nemtsov, who was shot and killed near the Kremlin last week, is only the latest in a long line that includes hundreds of journalists, human rights activists and businessmen.
“I believe Vladimir Putin is a stone-cold killer,” said Bill Browder, author of “Red Notice, A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice.” “Anyone who gets in the way seems to be arrested, exiled or killed.”
Browder, a Russia-based investor in the 1990s, recounts in his book details of the consequences he and his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, suffered at the hands of the Putin regime. Magnitsky was murdered in prison in 2009, after being arrested for exposing a $230 million tax fraud scheme involving law enforcement and government officials.
“I believe Vladimir Putin is a stone cold killer.”
- Bill Browder, author of book on Kremlin
Nemtsov, like many others whose murders have been blamed on Putin, had other enemies who may have been capable of killing. The Russian president, a former KGB agent, has vowed to bring Nemtsov’s killer to justice and implied that the hit may have been aimed at destabilizing his cash-strapped regime by framing it.
Boris Nemtsov, a former Russian deputy prime minister and opposition leader, shown here addressing a rally in Moscow, was killed near the Kremlin on Feb. 27. (Reuters) (AP)
But critics within Russia and the international community say too many of Putin’s enemies have been killed for the 62-year-old, who has run the country through the posts of either prime minister or president since 1999, to claim his hands are clean.
Among the more notable cases:
Sergei Yushenkov was gunned down in front of his home in April 2003. Yushenkov was part of a commission that investigated claims the KGB orchestrated bombings to ignite support for Putin’s war against Chechnya. A second member of the commission was fatally poisoned, a third nearly lost his life after being severely beaten, and the attorney for the commission was imprisoned for espionage.
Forbes editor Paul Klebnikov was shot to death in Moscow in July 2004, after he reportedly uncovered a money-laundering scheme that reached the highest levels of the Kremlin. Two suspects were charged, but later acquitted. He was one of more than 300 journalists in Russia who have disappeared or been murdered since 1993, according to a June 2009 report from the International Federation of Journalists.
In June 2004, human rights advocate and professor Nikolai Girenko was assassinated in his home.
Andrei Kozlov, a top official at Russia’s Central Bank who dedicated his career to eliminating money laundering, was killed in September 2006.
Anna Politkovskaya, who wrote books and articles accusing Putin of human rights violations in Chechnya, was executed in an elevator in her Moscow apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006.
Human rights attorney Stanislav Markelov was shot in the head in January 2009, as he left a press conference where he announced plans to sue the Russian government. Journalism student Anastasia Barburova was killed as she tried to intervene.
Human rights journalist Natalia Estemirova, was killed in July 2009, after being kidnapped from her home in Chechnya.
Two well-known cases of the poisoning of Putin adversaries involved former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.
Topic: There's No Disputin Putin : The Most Powerful Man? (Read 2089 times)