Germany sentences Russian murderer to life imprisonment, Kremlin singled out
The courtroom in Berlin before the verdict on the murder of Tornike Kavtarachvili, December 15, 2021. AP - Christophe Gateau
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
While tensions are already strained between Germany and Russia, the Berlin court on Wednesday (December 15th) sentenced a Russian citizen to life imprisonment for murder.
According to German justice, the man would have acted on orders from Moscow to eliminate a former Chechen opponent in the Kremlin.
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On August 23, 2019, Tornike Kavtarashvili was walking in a park in Berlin, where this Georgian, a former Chechen separatist, has been living with his family for two years.
But that midday, a cyclist approached and fired two bullets in his back, another at close range.
Tornike Kavtarashvili died instantly.
Not far from there, a man was arrested, charged with murder.
He called himself a Russian engineer and claimed to be called Vadim Sokolov.
But since October 2020 and the start of the trial, German justice has been convinced of this: the man in the box is in fact called Vadim Krasikov.
He is not an engineer, but a former agent of the FSB, the Russian intelligence services.
And for the court, no doubt: the order to kill comes from Moscow.
Verdict finally delivered Wednesday, December 15 morning, in the German federal capital: the Russian national is sentenced to life imprisonment.
What anger Moscow.
The Russian ambassador in Germany speaks of "
a political decision
" which "
seriously poisons Russian-German relations which were otherwise already difficult
", declared Sergei Netchaev.
There is no shortage of points of contention.
The latest episode is the situation on
the border between Ukraine and Russia
.
If tensions worsen, the new German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock reminded him: she could
block the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which is to link her country to Russia
.
In addition to the verdict, Berlin reacted to this "
serious attack on the sovereignty of the
German
state
" by taking the decision
to expel two Russian diplomats
.
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