Russia ordered the killing in broad daylight in a Berlin park of a former Chechen militant, a German court found on Wednesday, sentencing the agent who carried out the 2019 act of “state terrorism” to life imprisonment.
Georgian citizen Tornike Khangoshvili was killed with three shots from a Glock pistol on a sunny August day in 2019 in retaliation for his role fighting alongside Chechen separatists against Moscow in the 2000s, judge Olaf Arnoldi said. He sentenced Vadim Krasikov for the “especially serious” crime.
Germany summoned the Russian ambassador after the ruling, telling him that two of his embassy’s 101 diplomatic staff would be expelled, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said.
The finding could heighten pressure on a German government barely a week in office to toughen its stance towards Moscow amid warnings that Russia could be contemplating military action against Ukraine.
“State organs of the government of the Russian Federation took the decision to liquidate Tornike Khangoshvili in Berlin,” Arnoldi said, adding that Russia had issued Krasikov with false papers with which to travel for the killing.
“Khangashvili had given up the fight against the Russian Federation years before. He had not held a weapon in his hands since 2008,” Arnoldi said. “This was not an act of self-defence by Russia. This was and is nothing other than state terrorism.”
The Russian Embassy in Berlin said the verdict was “not objective and politically motivated”, TASS news agency reported.
“This murder, ordered by a state, is a serious violation of German law and Germany’s sovereignty,” Baerbock said. “Acts like the murder in (Berlin’s) Tiergarten park seriously burden relations between our countries.”
In 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin described Khangashvili as a “bloody terrorist”, accusing him of involvement in crimes including the 2004 bombing of the Moscow metro in which 10 people died.
A lawyer for the suspect, who maintains he is not Krasikov but Vadim Sokolov, a construction engineer from St. Petersburg, promised a decision on whether to appeal within a week, saying the case against his client was built on conjecture, not proof.
Arnoldi acknowledged that Khangoshvili, who had lived in exile since an earlier attempt on his life in Tbilisi, Georgia in 2015, was himself a killer. But the judge said his murder was a “professional operation” that could not have been carried out without local assistance in Berlin.
Arnoldi said that Krasikov flew to Paris several days before the hit, equipped with a false passport and thousands of euros in cash for his planned getaway, and from there journeyed to Berlin.
He shot Khangoshvili as he cycled through the park, before hiding in a bush to remove his dark clothes and baseball cap, trim his beard and don the clothes of a tourist strolling through Germany’s capital.
Only the presence of witnesses thwarted his plan, Arnoldi said. Within minutes, armed police surrounded Krasikov while others fished his clothes, the murder weapon and Khangoshvili’s bike out of the river where the agent had thrown them.
‘FOUR CHILDREN LOST THEIR FATHER’
Russia has maintained that the convicted murderer is not Krasikov. But Arnoldi said that pictures provided by Ukrainian authorities from his wedding to his Ukrainian wife, together with a comparison of their tattoos, proved beyond all doubt that the bearer of the false papers was the man they had identified as an agent of Russia’s FSB security service.
The fact that he had obtained false papers just over a month before the hit showed that he was backed by the Russian state, Arnoldi said, noting that Russian law allowed its agents to assassinate “terrorists”, even abroad, albeit only with presidential approval.
“Four children lost their father, two siblings their brother,” the judge said.
“Some media suggested that Russia or even Vladimir Putin are on trial here. That’s misleading: only the convict is on the bench.”
Security experts warn that agents established at large legacy embassies in formerly Soviet-allied states in eastern Europe can easily travel anywhere in the European Union.
The year before the killing, Russian agents poisoned a former Russian agent and his daughter in a provincial English city.
Russia’s western embassies have attracted attention in connection with mysterious deaths before. Earlier this year, a young diplomat was found dead on a Berlin street after having seemingly fallen from a window on an upper floor of the embassy. Russia refused to allow an autopsy and repatriated the body.
(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; additional reporting by Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow; Editing by Riham Alkousaa, Giles Elgood, Philippa Fletcher and Mark Heinrich)
EDMONTON – RCMP say a second suspect has been arrested in the killing of an Alberta county worker.
Mounties say 28-year-old Elijah Strawberry was taken into custody Friday at a house on O’Chiese First Nation.
Colin Hough, a worker with Rocky View County, was shot and killed while on the job on a rural road east of Calgary on Aug. 6.
Another man who worked for Fortis Alberta was shot and wounded, and RCMP said the suspects fled in a Rocky View County work truck.
Police later arrested Arthur Wayne Penner, 35, and charged him with first-degree murder and attempted murder, and a warrant was issued for Strawberry’s arrest.
RCMP also said there was a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Strawberry, describing him as armed and dangerous.
Chief Supt. Roberta McKale, told a news conference in Edmonton that officers had received tips and information over the last few weeks.
“I don’t know of many members that when were stopped, fuelling up our vehicles, we weren’t keeping an eye out, looking for him,” she said.
But officers had been investigating other cases when they found Strawberry.
“Our investigators were in O’Chiese First Nation at a residence on another matter and the major crimes unit was there working another file and ended up locating him hiding in the residence,” McKale said.
While an investigation is still underway, RCMP say they’re confident both suspects in the case are in police custody.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
RICHMOND, B.C. – The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says the 26-year-old son of a man found dead on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast has been charged with his murder.
Police say 58-year-old Henry Doyle was found badly injured on a forest service road in Egmont last September and died of his injuries.
The homicide team took over when the BC Coroners Service said the man’s death was suspicious.
It says in a statement that the BC Prosecution Service has approved one count of first-degree murder against the man’s son, Jackson Doyle.
Police say the accused will remain in custody until at least his next court appearance.
The homicide team says investigators remained committed to solving the case with the help of the community of Egmont, the RCMP on the Sunshine Coast and in Richmond, and the Vancouver Police Department.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, have broken off without an agreement following 15 hours of talks.
Joe McCann, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they stayed at the bargaining table with help from a mediator until 2 a.m. Friday and made “some progress.”
However, he says the union negotiators didn’t get an offer that they could recommend to the membership.
McCann says that in some ways they are close to an agreement, but in other areas they are “miles apart.”
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people who can’t navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last week, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
McCann asks HandyDART users to be “patient,” since they are trying to get not only a fair contract for workers but also a better service for customers.
He says it’s unclear when the talks will resume, but he hopes next week at the latest.
The employer, Transdev, didn’t reply to an interview request before publication.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
