It cited federal prosecutors as saying they believed the murder in broad daylight in the German capital on August 23, 2019 was a hit ordered by the Russian government.
The accused Russian, identified as Vadim Krasikov, was caught after the assassination and is in prison pending trial, the IAR news agency reported.
Meanwhile, Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle quoted the Federal Prosecutor's Office as saying in a statement that “the motivation behind the assassination order was the victim's opposition to the Russian central state, to the governments of its autonomous republics Chechnya and Ingushetia as well as to the pro-Russian government of Georgia.”
According to German prosecutors, the accused man either “hoped for a financial reward” or “shared the motive of his clients to kill a political opponent in retaliation for his involvement in previous conflicts with Russia," Deutsche Welle reported on its dw.com website.
It also said that the German government warned it would take action on the findings, including sanctions.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas was quoted as saying on Thursday that “this is certainly an extremely serious matter."
He added that "the federal government expressly reserves the right to take further action in this case," according to the dw.com website.
Obtained murder weapon in Warsaw?
A 40-year-old Georgian man, identified as Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, was shot in the head while on his way to a mosque in Berlin on August 23, 2019, according to reports last summer.
A week earlier, his suspected killer, using a Russian passport under the name of Vadim Sergeyevich Sokolov, flew from Moscow to Paris and then arrived in Warsaw three days later, Poland’s onet.pl news website reported last year.
He rented a hotel room in the centre of the Polish capital. His reservation was until August 26, but he left the hotel on August 22, onet.pl reported, citing German media outlets including the Tagesschau newspaper.
Onet.pl also reported at the time that investigators believed it was in Warsaw that the Russian obtained a Glock 26 pistol equipped with a silencer with which he later shot Khangoshvili in Berlin.
In a previous report in the summer of last year, the Polish website cited Georgia’s Human Rights Education and Monitoring Centre as saying that the slain Georgian fought in the Second Chechen War against Russian forces as a commander from 2001 to 2005.
According to onet.pl, the 49-year-old Russian suspect attempted to escape the crime scene in Berlin by bike after he fired a shot at Khangoshvili.
But police managed to capture the man, and they also found the murder weapon—a gun that he threw into the Spree River, which flows through central Berlin, onet.pl reported last August.
After the incident, Germany expelled two Russian embassy workers amid suspicion that Russia was behind the Berlin murder.
Moscow has denied any involvement, according to dw.com.
(gs/pk)
Source: IAR, dw.com