Expel - what do they want?

Russia and Germany exchanged diplomats and criticism after the sentence to the Berlin killer

Last week, Berlin sent two Russian diplomats - this is a reaction to the verdict in the case of the Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, who was killed in Berlin Park. The court ruled that the murder was committed by order of Russian special services. The Russian Foreign Ministry calls the sentence “absolutely unfair” and “biased”. On Monday, Moscow sent two German diplomats as a response.

On December 20, the ambassador of Germany Gesu Andreas von Gaira was called to the Russian Foreign Ministry. There he was “declared a decisive protest in connection with the unfriendly decision of the Federal Republic of Germany on the announcement of Persona non Grata two diplomatic employees of the Russian Embassy in Germany”, which was adopted last week. The Russian Foreign Ministry once again called the accusations of the involvement of the Russian state departments in the murder of Khangoshvili “unfounded” and “divorced from reality”, and the court’s verdict itself was a political order. In the “Symmetric answer”, the Russian Foreign Ministry also decided to send two diplomats.

The decision of the Russian Foreign Ministry was commented by the German Embassy in Russia. Geza Andreas von Gair said that the bodies of justice in Germany were independent and no political influence on the court was exerted.

And the expulsion of two Russian diplomats is an adequate reaction to "a murder committed in Germany on the instructions of another state."

In the German Foreign Ministry, in response to the decision of Russian colleagues, it was noted that it “exacerbates relations” between the two countries.

The court in the case of murder in Tyrgarten has become one of the most high -profile processes in Germany in recent years. The murdered-Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Chechen Chistan, a Georgian citizen, who headed the Chechen armed detachments in 2000 and 2004 and fought on the side of Georgia in a conflict with Southern Ossetia. The Russian authorities recognized Khangoshvili as a terrorist - after that, in 2016, he received a political asylum in Germany. In 2019, Khangoshvili was shot dead in the Berlin Park of Tirgarten: the criminal tried to hide, but was captured by the police.

Almost right there the police found that Vadim Sokolov - a passport for this name was discovered by the killer - this is a fictional name. A few months later, law enforcement agencies said they established the identity of the criminal. In parallel, attempts to establish his identity were made by journalists of Der Spiegel, The Insider (entered by the Ministry of Justice in the media register - “foreign agents”), Bellingcat (entered by the Ministry of Justice in the media register - “foreign agents”) and the “Doseier” center: they found out that his real name is Vadim Krasikov. In the investigation of journalists, it was found that Krasikov is associated with Russian special services.

The Federal Prosecutor's Office of Germany came to the same conclusions - according to the Federal Prosecutor Nikolaus Forshner, the murder of Khangoshvili was a state order. The Supreme Land Court of Berlin last week listened to the arguments of the prosecutor's office, found Krasikov guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. And also

He decided that the killer acted on behalf of the Russian state.

Against the background of the sentence, a diplomatic scandal broke out. German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbok announced "a serious violation of German legislation and sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany." The representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, in turn, called the matter "politicized and divorced from any idea of ​​the rule of law."