Zaur Dadayev (R) and Khamzat Bakhayev, convicted of involvement in the killing of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, stand inside the defendants' cage during their sentencing hearing at the Moscow military district court, Russia, July 13, 2017. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The daughter of murdered Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov has appealed the jail sentence of a man found guilty of killing her father and four accomplices, the Interfax news agency reported on Friday.

A Moscow court earlier this month sentenced Zaur Dadayev, a former soldier in Chechnya, to 20 years in jail for the murder and handed terms of between 11 and 19 years to four other men convicted of being his accomplices.

Nemtsov, one of President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critics, was murdered in 2015 as he walked across a bridge near the Kremlin after dining with his girlfriend. Aged 55, he had been working on a report examining Russia’s role in the conflict in Ukraine. His killing sent a chill through opposition circles.

Some of Nemtsov’s supporters deemed the jail sentences too lenient and were unhappy the court did not make mention of their assessment that he had been killed for his political activity.

On Friday Interfax cited Olga Mikhailova, a lawyer for Zhanna Nemtsova, as saying she had asked the court to annul the sentences and return the case to prosecutors to have the crime reclassified from a contract killing to the murder of “a state or public figure.”

The late politician’s allies have said the investigation into his murder was a cover-up and that the people who ordered his killing remain at large.