Russia expels German diplomats. Berlin has indeed accuses Moscow to have sponsored the assassination on his soil of a Chechen opponent in 2019.
Le Monde with AP and AFP
The tension rises from a notch between Germany and Russia. Monday, December 20, the latter announced the expulsion of two German diplomats, in response to a similar measure taken last week by Berlin, which accuses Moscow to have sponsored the assassination of a Chechen opponent in Germany in 2019.
“The Russian part categorically rejects the unfounded accusations and disconnected from reality about the involvement of Russian state structures in this crime,” said the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement. The department, which did not specify when diplomats will leave the country, stresses that Russia “will continue to respond adequately and proportionately to any Berlin attack”. According to German diplomacy, the Russian replica, “completely unjustified”, will “further weigh on bilateral relations.
On December 15, the Court of Berlin condemned a russian to the fuzzy identity for the assassination of a Chechen separatist veteran, a national of Georgia, in a Berlin Park, August 23, 2019. The President of the Court, Olaf Arnoldi, directly implicated the Russian authorities, arguing that they had “ordered the accused to liquidate the victim”. In the wake of the verdict, Berlin announced the expulsion of two Russian diplomats. Moscow, who has always denied any involvement, denounced a “political” verdict.
The killer was a member of the FSB
Former Chechen separatist leader, Georgian Zelimkhan Tornike Khangochvili, 40, had fought against the Russian forces between 2000 and 2004. He had been living since 2016 with his family in Germany, where he had asked for asylum.
He was a victim of “a cold blood execution”, affirmed the President of the Court. His murderer was designated by the Prosecutor as Vadim Krasikov, 56, “Commander of a Special Unit of Russian Secret Services FSB”. The latter arrived in Berlin “totally invisible”, according to the verdict, including a hook by Paris, then by Warsaw, before joining the German capital.
The facts took place at the time of lunch: the murderer, moving by bike, had approached behind his victim and had shot twice, using a silent, before completing it by a bullet in the head, at the end bearing, according to the prosecutor. It had been arrested shortly after the facts near the murder places, an extension of the Grand Park of the Tiergarten.
Throughout his trial, the accused rejected the identity lent to him, saying to “know anyone” answering the name of Krasikov. By the voice of his lawyer, Robert Unger, he told himself called Vadim Sokolov, being “Russian, Single and Construction Engineer”, 50 years old. During the trial, several indices, however, have come to strengthen the conviction of the prosecution as to the identity of the accused, for example a private photo of Krasikov showing two tattoos identical to those of the suspect.