Russian on trial accused of state-ordered Berlin execution

BERLIN — A Russian accused of killing a Georgian man in broad daylight in downtown Berlin on Moscow’s orders went on trial for murder Wednesday, in a case that has contributed to growing frictions between Germany and Russia. The defendant Vadim Krasikov, using the alias Vadim Solokov, traveled to the German capital last August on the orders of the Russian government to kill a Georgian citizen of Chechen ethnicity who fought Russian troops in Chechnya, prosecutor Ronald Georg said. “State agencies of the central government of the Russian Federation gave the defendant the contract to liquidate the Georgian citizen with Chechen roots,” Georg told the court, reading the indictment. “The defendant took the contract, either for an unknown sum of money or because he shared the motive of those who gave the contract to liquidate the as a political enemy in revenge for his role in the second Chechen war and participation in other armed conflict against the Russian Federation.” No pleas are entered in the German trial system, and the defendant made only a short statement as the trial began under tight security and coronavirus precautions, saying that he had been misidentified and was a 50-year-old born in Russia, not a 55-year-old born in Kazakhstan as alleged. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has also called the allegations of Russian involvement in the Berlin killing “absolutely groundless.” After Merkel confronted Putin about the killing at a meeting in Paris in December, the Russian leader called the victim, Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a “bandit” and a “murderer,” accusing him of killing scores of people during fighting in the Caucasus.