More than two years after the fatal shooting at a Georgian of Chechen descent in the middle of Berlin, the Supreme Court sentenced a 56-year-old Russian to life imprisonment. The judges saw it as proven that the man was acting on behalf of Russia.
The act was “nothing more than revenge and retaliation,” said the presiding judge of the State Security Senate, Olaf Arnoldi, on Wednesday when giving reasons for the verdict. “That was state terrorism.” The court determined the particular gravity of the guilt, which almost rules out a release after 15 years. The verdict is not yet legally binding-
Russian ambassador criticizes judgment
The Russian ambassador to Germany, Sergei Nechayev, sharply criticized the judgment. “We do not consider this judgment to be objective, a politically motivated decision that continues to seriously burden the already difficult Russian-German relations,” the diplomat told the state media in Moscow.
The court was convinced that the defendant had maliciously shot the Georgian on August 23, 2019 in the Kleiner Tiergarten park. The presiding judge said the man who headed a militia in the fight against Russia for several years during the second Chechnya war had long been targeted by the Russian Federation. He recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin later publicly called the victim a “bandit”, “murderer” and “bloodthirsty person”.
In July 2019 at the latest, the “state authorities of the Russian Federation” had made the decision to liquidate the victim. “They gave the defendant the job and gave him a new identity,” said the judge. One month before the crime, the Russian had been issued an official passport with the alias identity. After the crime, Russia held onto the false identity in order to cover up “its own involvement in the crime”.
At the beginning of the trial, the defendant himself had declared through his lawyers that his name was Vadim S., 50 years old and a civil engineer.
Politically highly explosive case
The verdict could shake German-Russian relations shortly after Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) took office. The federal government initially did not want to comment. The decision is only a few minutes old, and he does not yet know the reason, said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit at noon. “And so it is still too early for the federal government to react.”
The federal government drew the first conclusions after the Federal Public Prosecutor began the investigation two years ago and accused the Russian government of a lack of cooperation.
The court is convinced, however, that Vadim K. traveled to Berlin disguised as a tourist the day before the crime and one day later killed the 40-year-old Georgian who had been an asylum seeker in Germany since the end of 2016. He approached it on a bicycle and fired three shots in the back and head from behind.
In particular, smoke and DNA traces on the clothing that had been fished after the perpetrator’s escape from the Spree, as well as detailed testimony, were clear evidence according to the court. “The act was meticulously prepared by helpers stationed in Berlin,” said Judge Arnoldi.
Source: Nachrichten
