Nemtsov murder witness Anna Duritskaya tells mom he insisted on walking to apartment

Inna Duritskaya, the mother of Anna Duritskaya, the witness of Nemtsov's murder who was next to him on the Bolshoy Moskvoretskiy bridge, told CNN about her conversation with her daughter right after the tragic event.

Inna Duritskaya said that, according to her daughter, Boris Nemtsov insisted on walking on foot to his apartment in the center of Moscow.

"She waited for Boris in the restaurant. They had supper and went outside. Anna proposed taking a cap, but Boris refused. He wanted to walk across the bridge. She held his hand while they walked. They she heard shots. Boris crumpled and fell to the ground. When Anna realized what was happening, she was so shocked that she did not see what happened. Moreover, he was shot in the back," Inna told CNN.

Anna Duritskaya said earlier that she was in shock after the murder, and that she called her mother in Ukraine during the first minutes after the murder.

J.Hawk's Comment: Three possibilities here:

1. Anna is telling the truth. That would mean Nemtsov was a target of opportunity and his murder was an armed robbery gone bad for some reason (and there was no apparent attempt to rob), and, indeed, what kind of a murder plot would assume that Nemtsov and Duritskaya would walk in that particular direction after exiting the restaurant? Why not wait at Nemtsov's apartment instead? Which gets us to point number 2.

2. Anna is lying to cover up for herself. Because if she convinced Nemtsov to take the walk, then she is the one who led him to his death. If it were a planned hit, then the killer must have had a certain degree of assurance that Nemtsov would in fact walk across that bridge, unless there were several killers waiting at various locations for him to show up.

3. Inna is lying to cover up for Anna. We don't know what Anna really said to her mother, and for all we know mother is part of the plot as well. The circle of people who knew of the Nemtsov-Duritskaya relationship and their daily goings-about was likely very narrow, but it probably included the mom if she was the first person she had called.