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Moscow pays last respects to slain opposition politician Boris Nemtsov

The funeral for the opposition politician will take place later on Tuesday at Moscow’s Troyekurovskoye cemetery

MOSCOW, March 3. /TASS/. A public ceremony of paying last respects to Russian opposition politician and former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov killed in central Moscow overnight to Saturday is taking place at Moscow’s Andrei Sakharov rights Center.

Nemtsov’s family, including his mother and children, are standing in front of the casket. A wreath from the Russian president has been delivered to Sakharov Centre. Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich has arrived tp pay last respects, Olga Shorina from RPR-Parnas party told Tass.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s spokesperson Natalia Timakova said the government is represented by Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Prikhodko.

Earlier, Medvedev expressed deep condolences to Nemtsov’s next-of-kin, and also sent a mourning wreath. US Ambassador to Russia John Tefft is also attending the visitation, standing near co-chairman of RPR-Parnas Party Mikahil Kasyanov.

The head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Alexander Shoikin and the head of the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications, Mikhail Seslavinsky, are also in the hall.

After attending the visitation services, the head of Rosatom state nuclear energy corporation, Sergei Kiriyenko , said he hoped "the law enforcement agencies will manage to quickly establish, at minimum, the perpetrators and contractors of that political murder".

 A delegation of the Yaroslavl region government and parliament has also arrived to pay last respects to Nemtsov.

Russian opposition activist Alexey Navalny had asked the court to suspend his house arrest for one day to attend the ceremony but was denied.

Nemtsov, co-chair of RPR-Parnas and deputy of the Yaroslavl regional duma, was killed as he was crossing Moskvoretsky Bridge in view of the Kremlin overnight to Saturday.

The funeral for the opposition politician will take place later on Tuesday at Moscow’s Troyekurovskoye cemetery.