Eliminaing Russian Nuisances

"State organs of the government of the Russian Federation took the decision to liquidate Tornike Khangoshvili in Berlin."

"Khangashvili had given up the fight against the Russian Federation years before. He had not held a weapon in his hands since 2008."

"This was not an act of self-defence by Russia. This was and is nothing other than state terrorism."

Judge Olaf Arnoldi, Berlin court 

"This murder, ordered by a state, is a serious violation of German law and Germany's sovereignty."

"Acts like the murder in [Berlin's] Tiergarten park seriously burden relations between our countries."

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock

Russian President Putin | German Chancellor Olaf Scholz Photograph:( AFP )

 

Germany summoned the Russian ambassador to Germany, to inform him that two of the embassy's 101 diplomatic staff were to be expelled, following the trial and ruling by Justice Arnoldi when he sentenced Vadim Krasikov for the "especially serious" crime of murder of a former Chechen militant. The Russian agent dispatched to do the work of assassinating a man that President Vladimir Putin spoke of as a "bloody terrorist" was sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2019 act of "state terrorism".

The verdict, in the opinion of the Russian Embassy was "not objective and politically motivated". In 2019, Russian President Putin accused the murdered man of involvement in crimes that included the 2004 bombing if the Moscow metro, when ten people were killed. Georgian citizen Tornike Khangoshvili died of three shots from a Block pistol in August of 2019 in evident retaliation for his role fighting for Chechen separatists against Moscow in the 2000s.

Russia had supplied their hit man with false papers to use when travelling toward his destined target. His assignment began when Krasikov flew to Paris equipped with a false passport and from there journeyed on to Berlin In  his possession was thousands of euros in cash to enable his swift departure once his assignment had been completed.

As Khangoshvili cycled through the famed Berlin park on a beautiful sunny August day, Krasikov lethally shot his target, then hid behind shrubbery where he removed his clothing and his cap, replaced them with an innocuous tourist-type outfit, trimmed his beard, and prepared to saunter out and make good his escape from the scene. Unfortunately for his well-laid plans, there were witnesses.

 

The murderer's plan of escape was rent asunder when armed police within minutes surrounded him and others retrieved the discarded clothing, the murder weapon and brought Khangoshvili's bicycle out of the river. The arrested man now claims he is not Krasikov, but a construction engineer from St.Petersburg with the name of Vadim Sokolov. The lawyer for the arrested, tried and sentenced man claims the case against his client was built on conjecture, not proof. 

Russian assassins have a long history of murder by grotesque means of one kind or another to rid the nation's powerful and popular leader of irritating critics, of embarrassing turncoats, of those possessing state-incriminating evidence of more than nuisance value. From the use of military-grade chemical weapons to radioactive poisons, they leave their trademark, clumsy clues used to identify the perpetrators, linking them directly to the state apparatus assigned to eliminate state opponents.

Zelimkhan Khangoshvili's body was carried during his funeral in Duisi village in the Pankisi Gorge valley. - AP Photo/Zurab Tsertsvadze - August 2019