Moscow (AFP) - A Russian court on Sunday charged two men with the murder of opposition activist Boris Nemtsov, including a former police officer from Chechnya who confessed to his involvement in what investigators said was a contract killing.
Four others denied any connection to the killing of Nemtsov, who was shot four times in the back on February 27 while walking with his girlfriend along a bridge near the Kremlin in a brazen assassination that has sent shivers through the country's opposition.

Interfax news agency quoted a law enforcement source as saying that a sixth suspect threw a grenade at police who came to arrest him in the Chechen capital Grozny and killed himself with another grenade Saturday.

In Moscow, heavily armed masked police marched the five handcuffed suspects through hallways packed with journalists and into two separate courtrooms where they were ordered to be held for around two months pending the investigation.

According to documents read out in court, the accused are charged under a section of the Russian criminal code relating to murders carried out for financial gain, Interfax reported.

The charges also involve extortion and banditry. Investigators said they were still seeking others who may have been involved.

However, as in a string of other killings of Russian opposition figures, officials have yet to shed light on who might have ordered the late-night murder of the 55-year-old Nemtsov, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin.

Zaur Dadayev, a decorated former deputy commander in a Chechen police unit born in 1982, and Anzor Gubashev, 31, who worked for a private security company in Moscow, were arrested on Saturday in Ingushetia, which neighbours Chechnya.

They were both charged with murder but Gubashev denied involvement.

"The participation of Dadayev is confirmed by his confession," said presiding judge Nataliya Mushnikova, according to state news agencies.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said he was baffled by the arrest.

More: http://news.yahoo.com/two-charged-nemtsov-murder-russian-court-004552765.html