‘ACT OF RETALIATION’

Russia Ordered Broad-Daylight Assassination in German Park, Court Finds

Acting on the orders of the Kremlin, Vadim Krasikov used the alias “Vadim Sokolov” to travel to Germany and execute Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, the court found.

A court in Berlin on Wednesday sentenced a Russian national to life in prison for the brazen 2019 assassination of a former Chechen commander in a city park. Acting on the orders of the Russian government, Vadim Krasikov used the alias “Vadim Sokolov” to travel to Germany and execute Zelimkhan Khangoshvili at point-blank range in broad daylight, the court found. “He liquidated a political opponent as an act of retaliation,” a prosecutor said in closing arguments of the trial last week, Deutsche Welle reports. Krasikov was described as a commander of a special unit within Russia’s FSB. Khangoshvili, a Georgian national and a veteran of the Second Chechen War, had sought asylum in Germany before he was killed. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied involvement in the hit, and an envoy on Wednesday denounced the German court’s “political” ruling.