Russian Envoy Slams German Court Ruling on Khangoshvili Murder Case as Politically-Motivated

Earlier on Wednesday, a Berlin High Court found Russian citizen Vadim Sokolov (Krasikov) guilty of the murder of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian citizen of Chechen descent, and sentenced him to life in prison.

Russian Ambassador to Germany Sergei Nechaev has criticised the ruling by a German court on the Khangoshvili murder case, saying it won't go unanswered.

"According to the information received, on 15 December 2021, a German court passed a verdict according to which Russian state structures were behind the organisation of the murder of Georgian citizen Z. Khangoshvili in Berlin on 23 August 2019. We consider this verdict to be a biased, politically motivated decision, seriously aggravating the already complicated relations between Russia and Germany", an official statement read.

Nechaev stressed that the court's notion that Russia was linked to the case was absurd and blasted witness testimonies.

The German Prosecutor General’s Office stressed that a mastermind behind the murder was not established.

"I will give a short statement on behalf of the Prosecutor General's Office. The Second Criminal Chamber of the High Court (Berlin) fully confirmed the prosecution's charge of murder. On August 23, 2019, the defendant in the Kleiner Tiergarten [park] in Berlin killed a citizen of Georgia, he shot him. This happened by order of the state. A specific mastermind has not been established", the spokesperson said.

A Berlin High Court representative also said that sending the convicted citizen back to Russia has not been ruled out.

Khangoshvili was shot dead in Berlin's Tiergarten park in August 2019. German investigators claimed that the suspect, a Russian national, had been ordered to murder Khangoshvili by "Russian government agencies".

Zelimkhan Khangoshvili is pictured against the backdrop of the flag of the unrecognised Chechen Republic of Ichkeria during the Chechen conflict.

© Photo : Facebook

He is considered a terrorist in Russia due to his participation in the activity of jihadists in Chechnya, and the German court also noted that Khangoshvili was responsible for multiple deaths.

Russian authorities believe he was one of the organisers of the attack on a school in Beslan, which claimed over 300 lives (186 of them - children), and deadly explosions in the Moscow subway.