An eyewitness to Nemtsov's murder came to court for the first time

BBC

5 min

May 10, 2017

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Photo caption: The first police car arrived at the crime scene just five minutes after Sergei Budnikov called the emergency number 112

Photo by Mikhail Japaridze|TASS

In the Moscow District Military Court, at the trial of the murder of Boris Nemtsov, Sergei Budnikov, the driver of the harvesting vehicle, near which the opposition politician was killed on the evening of February 27, 2015, acted as a witness.

During the seven months that the trial has been ongoing, for the first time, its participants saw with their own eyes a direct eyewitness to the crime.

For one reason or another, no other eyewitnesses to Nemtsov’s murder took part in the process - at least not yet.

Nemtsov’s friend Anna Duritskaya, who lives in Kyiv, was summoned to court several times, but she never came, and the jury was eventually read out her testimony, given immediately after the murder on the night of February 28, 2015.

It is known that several passers-by were on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge at the time of the murder, but so far none of them have appeared in court.

Orange cleaner

The driver of the cleaning vehicle, Sergei Budnikov, by coincidence, turned out to be one of the key participants in what happened late in the evening of February 27, 2015 on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge.

The fact is that his big orange KamAZ - a vacuum sweeper, in official language - was slowly driving along the sidewalk of the bridge in the place and at the moment when the killer shot at Nemtsov.

It is possible that the killer deliberately used the fortunately turned up KamAZ as a cover, but neither he nor Budnikov could have known at that moment that the truck would block the visibility of the only video camera that was able to record the murder scene - the meteorological camera of the TV Center channel, installed on the building of the Balchug Hotel.

Sergei Budnikov stopped the car a few seconds after the shots were fired. Anna Duritskaya ran up to him, and it was Budnikov who called 112 from her phone to call the police and an ambulance.

"I think let me come over"

On Wednesday, Budnikov told the jury everything that he was able to notice and remember at that moment - his testimony did not add clarity to the picture of the crime.

“I drove out onto Vasilievsky Spusk, turned around, started the additional equipment, lowered the brushes, drove along the Moskvoretsky Bridge,” said Budnikov. “I accidentally looked in the mirror, it looked like someone was lying down. I think, let me come up.”

The witness emphasized several times that the specificity of the work of the driver of the “road vacuum cleaner” is such that most of the time he has to watch the cleaner’s brush in a special mirror so as not to run it over the curb. Therefore, he has no time to look around.

Photo caption, The investigation considers Zaur Dadaev to be the direct perpetrator of the crime

image copyrightiStock

Budnikov only briefly noticed that a man and a woman were walking along the sidewalk of the bridge, and he didn’t even really see what they were wearing.

However, accidentally glancing in the rearview mirror, he nevertheless noticed that the man had fallen.

“It looked like someone was lying down. I drove a little more, stopped, got out of the car, walked around on the left side. A girl ran towards me and shouted: “Help! Help! They shot! They shot!" I said: "Let's call an ambulance. She was in a state of shock,” Budnikov told the court.

He didn’t have a phone with him, so the driver dialed 112 from Duritskaya’s phone - she herself, according to him, was not able to do this.

After that, Budnikov returned the phone to Duritskaya, got into his car and continued cleaning the roads along his work route.

Came back to wash off the blood

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Budnikov claims that he spent only a few seconds at the crime scene - half a minute, maybe a minute.

In fact, his orange KamAZ stood at the side of the road for more than five minutes, but this error in Budnikov’s estimation of time seemed quite natural to both the prosecution and the defense.

What seems more mysterious is that during these five minutes Budnikov managed to notice almost nothing: neither passersby passing by and approaching Nemtsov’s body, nor passing cars.

Budnikov also did not see the killer and the ZAZ Chance in which he drove away. I didn’t hear any shots, but this is understandable: according to the case file, the killer fired from a pistol with a silencer, and the garbage disposal, according to the witness, is very loud, since it has two engines running at the same time.

Budnikov stated that he did not approach Nemtsov’s body, since he himself was not a doctor and could not help in this situation. Why he left so hastily, without even waiting for the police or ambulance to arrive, remains unclear - judge Yuri Zhitnikov dismissed this defense issue as irrelevant.

True, it turned out that Budnikov, a few hours later, found himself at the crime scene again: on instructions from his superiors, he arrived in another watering car to wash away traces of blood from the sidewalk.

"There was no one"

The only thing Budnikov noticed in the first minutes after the murder was a car that stopped briefly next to his car. Budnikov suggests that it was just some onlooker who was attracted by the bustle on the sidewalk of the bridge.

“A car, a minivan, some kind of onlooker slowed down. Like a “Caddy” [Volkswagen Caddy]. I didn’t even have time to get to the door of the car, there was already no trace of him,” Budnikov said.

This Volkswagen is clearly visible on the TVC camera: the car stops at the garbage collector and drives away about two minutes later.

Budnikov also categorically stated that he was alone in his car - lifting passengers into special equipment is strictly prohibited.

Photo caption, Temirlan Eskerkhanov

Photo by Anton Novoderezhkin|TASS

The defendants' lawyers, prosecutors and representatives of the injured party tried several times in a circle to extract at least some valuable details from Budnikov.

- Did you see anyone on the bridge other than a man and a woman?

- I did not see. I was specifically focused on my work.

- How often have you looked in the rearview mirror?

- You understand: this is my job, I have to constantly look at the brush so as not to hit the curb.

- Did you see anyone until you caught up with the people?

- There was no one.

- Any people running away, a car driving away?

- No.

- Were there any other people on the bridge?

- No.

- You didn’t see it or it wasn’t there?

- No, it was not.

- Did someone approach you or Duritskaya?

- No I did not see.

This concluded the interrogation of Sergei Budnikov.

The trial of the murder of Boris Nemtsov continues in the absence of two defendants - the Gubashev brothers were removed from the courtroom in early April until the end of the trial due to repeated procedural violations and, as the judge said, “disrespect for other participants in the trial.”

Five Chechens are accused of the crime: Zaur Dadaev, Anzor and Shadid Gubashev, Temirlan Eskerkhanov and Khamzat Bakhaev. They all categorically deny their guilt.

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