German federal prosecutors have accused Russia of ordering the shooting of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in a Berlin park in August 2019.
German prosecutors have accused the Russian “government agencies of the central government of the Russian Federation” who ordered the killing.
German state prosecutors started investigation into the case in December, who investigated a former 40-year-old Zelimkhan Khangoshvili who was a Chechen rebel commando during the second Chechen war in 2001 till 2005.
At the time prosecutors said there is “sufficient factual evidence” he was shot dead “on behalf of state agencies of the Russian Federation.”
German foreign minister Heiko Maas told reporters on Thursday, the Russian ambassador had been summond for talks.
He added, that the federal government “explicitly reserves the right to take further measures.
According to Bellingcat who are an investigative journalism website that specializes in fact-checking and open-source intelligence and German magazine Der Spiegel, the Russian assassin travelled to Germany under the name of Vadim Sokolov.
However, it has been uncovered that the assassin’s real name is Vadim Krasikov, who is a suspect in the 2013 murder of a Russian businessman in Moscow.
In August last year prosecutors claim that Vadim Krasikov flew from Moscow to Paris, then to Warsaw, then Berlin.
He allegedly used the name Vadim Sokolov in a passport that was issued by the Russian Authorities.
German prosecutors claim that on 23 August Vadim Sokolov used a Glock 26 pistol with a silencer and shot him in the torso, and then fired two more shots, known as a double tap, into his head whilst he was lying on the floor.
Vadim Krasikov was arrested after the killing and has been in pre-trial detension ever since.
In December, the German Foreign Office expelled two Russian diplomats from Berlin with immediate effect, after a daylight assassination took place in a park in August.
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