(Berlin) The German prosecution on Tuesday requested a life sentence against a Russian accused of having “liquidated” a Georgian from the Chechen minority in a Berlin park, and directly implicated Moscow.
The suspect designated by the court as Vadim Krasikov is accused of killing 40-year-old Georgian Tornike Kavtarashvili with three bullets in broad daylight in Berlin’s Tiergarten park in August 2019, a case that has since plagued the already strained relations between Germany and Russia.
Moscow has always denied any involvement.
“The accused was the commander of a special unit of the Russian FSB secret service,” said prosecutor Lars Malkies in his indictment.
PHOTO CHRISTOPH SOEDER, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
The suspect designated by the court as Vadim Krasikov is accused of killing the Georgian Tornike Kavtarashvili, 40, with three bullets in broad daylight, in the Tiergarten park in Berlin in August 2019.
“He liquidated a political opponent in retaliation,” he added, referring to “an obviously long-prepared attack” and executed “in cold blood”.
The accused denies the identity attributed to him by the prosecution, saying that he “knows no one” by the name of Krasikov.
Through the voice of his lawyer Robert Unger, he claimed to be called Vadim Sokolov, 50, “Russian, single and construction engineer”.
” Tourist ”
The facts took place on August 23, 2019, around noon: the murderer, riding a bicycle, approached his victim from behind and fired twice with a silencer, before finishing him with a bullet at close range in the head, said the prosecutor.
Before his package, the accused traveled as a tourist to Paris and Warsaw, before reaching Berlin.
A former Chechen separatist leader, the defeated Georgian fought against Russian forces between 2000 and 2004.
He had been living since 2016 with his family in Germany where he had applied for asylum.
During the trial, several clues came to strengthen the conviction of the prosecution on the identity of the accused, such as a private photo of Krasikov with two tattoos identical to those of the suspect and the testimony of his brother-in-law.
The catch, the latter, a Ukrainian, came to the stand for the first time and did not recognize him, then gave an interview to Spiegel, saying that it was indeed Krasikov. The court therefore called him back a few weeks later and this time it formally identified him.
Although he said he was afraid of possible reprisals, his credibility was damaged.
“Bloodthirsty”
If the Kremlin has always fiercely denied being behind this assassination, President Vladimir Putin described the victim as “a very cruel and bloodthirsty fighter”. He claimed to have requested his extradition, which Berlin denied.
At the end of 2019, Germany expelled two Russian diplomats to protest their lack of cooperation, a measure to which Moscow responded by in turn sacking two German diplomats.
This murder in Berlin, the poisoning of Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, treated in the German capital before his imprisonment in Russia, as well as that of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom in 2018, weighed heavily on strong suspicions about the role of Russian security services in violent operations.
But Moscow’s involvement has so far never been proven in these cases and the Kremlin has always systematically denied any responsibility.
These cases have added to a series of diplomatic tensions between Berlin and Moscow, since the Bundestag cyberattack in 2015 attributed to Russia.
Two weeks before the recent German parliamentary elections on September 26, the courts have also opened an investigation for cyberespionage of deputies, behind which Berlin suspects the hand of the Kremlin.
There are also many geopolitical differences, such as the situation in Syria, the annexation of Crimea and the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine.