KYIV, Ukraine — More than a week after Russian opposition leader and former deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov was murdered just steps from the Kremlin, some officials in Russia are pointing their fingers at Islamists.

Out of the five suspects detained over the weekend, one — Zaur Dadayev, a former Chechen police commander — reportedly confessed his involvement in Nemtsov's shooting death. And some unnamed investigators are suggesting he was the chief organizer. A sixth suspect reportedly committed suicide.

The officials are also telling Russian news agencies that the opposition leader's statement after the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris — in which Nemtsov said Islam was still stuck in the Middle Ages — may have gotten him killed.

Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the autonomous republic in Russia's predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region, said Dadayev was likely disturbed by Nemtsov's comments.

"Everyone who knows Zaur confirms that he is a deeply religious man, and that he, like all Muslims, was shocked by the actions of Charlie and comments in support of printing the cartoons," Kadyrov said on Instagram, his preferred medium for public commentary.

Kadyrov, a staunch Kremlin ally installed in 2007 to rein in the insurgency, also lauded the Chechen ex-cop shortly after his arrest as a "true patriot" and dedicated soldier, a claim echoed by Dadayev's mother.

"He was a model fighter with a heap of state medals," Aimani Dadayeva told Reuters on Monday. She maintains that her son is innocent.

Nemtsov's allies aren't buying the officials' allegations either.

"This version is entirely convenient for the authorities," Ilya Yashin, a close associate who led an opposition party with the slain politician, wrote in a Facebook post on Monday.

Moscow fought a war to subdue separatist Chechnya from 1994 to 1996, when rebels forced Russian troops out of the region. Then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin launched a second war there in 1999. Under Kadyrov, Chechnya is now more stable than some of the surrounding North Caucasus, where militancy continues to flourish.

Suspects from the North Caucasus — often associated in Russia's collective consciousness with violence and extremism — have been singled out in other allegedly political killings, such as the 2006 assassination of journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Liberal-minded supporters such as Yashin fiercely criticize the Kremlin for attempting to cover up what they believe was a political hit aimed at silencing the opposition. For his part, President Putin has condemned Nemtsov's murder and promised swift justice.

Another curious wrinkle in the story is that that Dadayev served in a police unit tasked mainly with fighting the local Islamist insurgency.

Either way, with the suspects rounded up and one alleged confession in the bag, officials seem to be making good on Putin's pledge.

But others believe an open-and-shut case is just what officials are looking for.

Grigory Shvedov, the editor of the Caucasian Knot, an online journal, says observers are now "witnessing a process of shielding the organizers."

He said Kadyrov's apparent defense of Dadayev was telling.

"I think a kind of lifesaver was tossed out, a message sent to the suspect in the murder: ‘Follow this version, and everything will be OK,'" Shvedov told Radio Liberty on Monday.

GlobalPost