Poland's Senate leader says Russia denies him entry for Nemtsov funeral
Boris Nemtsov was gunned down in central Moscow on Friday.
WARSAW (AFP) - Poland s Senate leader Bogdan Borusewicz said Monday that Russia had denied him entry for the funeral of opposition activist Boris Nemtsov, who was gunned down in central Moscow on Friday.
"I wanted to pay respect to the slain Boris Nemtsov and to all Russians who think like him. But I have just learnt Russian authorities will not allow me to attend the funeral in Moscow," said Borusewicz, a key communist-era dissident and founding member of Poland s anti-regime Solidarity movement.
"The denial of entry for Speaker Borusewicz is retaliation for the fact that Russian parliamentary speaker Valentina Matviyenko is subject to EU sanctions," Poland s foreign ministry spokesman Marcin Wojciechowski said on Twitter.
However, Jan Litynski, a senior aide to Poland s President Bronislaw Komorowski, told AFP that he would be allowed to attend the funeral.
"I m going. I will represent the president of Poland at the ceremonies," Litynski said.
"Russia has lost a great man, a great democrat and friend of Poland," he added.
Like Borusewicz, both Komorowski and Litynski were vocal opponents of Poland s Soviet-imposed communist regime before its peaceful demise in 1989.
Lithuania s Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius will attend Nemtsov s funeral, his spokesman told AFP on Monday while former foreign minister Sandra Kalniete will represent neighbouring Latvia.
All once under the Soviet thumb, the three countries that are now members of both the EU and NATO have been among the most vocal critics of Russia s 2014 annexation of Ukraine s Crimean peninsula.
