Status: 05.11.2021 2:59 p.m.
A Russian diplomat was found dead in front of the Russian embassy in Berlin in October. The Foreign Office confirmed a corresponding report by “Spiegel”. He was evidently a secret agent.
A death occurred at the Russian embassy in Berlin – this was confirmed by the Federal Foreign Office. The Russian Embassy spoke of a “tragic accident” which, for ethical reasons, should not be commented on. The Berlin police have so far not given a statement.
The man was discovered on the pavement on the morning of October 19, according to the “Spiegel”. He had apparently fallen from one of the upper floors of the building complex on the Behrenstrasse side. It runs parallel to Unter den Linden, where the embassy entrance is located.
According to the official list of diplomats, the man had been accredited as second embassy secretary since summer 2019, but the German security authorities regarded the German security authorities as a disguised employee of the Russian domestic secret service FSB, writes the “Spiegel”.
Related to FSB Vice Director?
The 35-year-old is said to have been related to a high-ranking officer of the 2nd service of the Russian domestic secret service FSB. The research organization Bellingcat wrote with reference to publicly available sources that he was the son of the deputy director of the second service of the FSB, who also heads the FSB directorate for the protection of the constitutional order.
Connections to the zoo murder
In a blog post, Bellingcat refers to evidence that suggests a connection between the second FSB service and the murder of a Georgian of Chechen origin in Berlin’s Kleiner Tiergarten in August 2019.
A Bellingcat employee testified in the zoo murder trial in April that the alleged perpetrator, according to various data, had visited a target range outside Moscow and the FSB anti-terror center in a suburb called Balashikha.
According to Bellingcat, both institutions are subordinate to the second service of the FSB. According to the “Spiegel”, western secret services also link this second service to the zoo murder.
According to Bellingcat information, there are also connections between the Directorate for the Protection of the Constitutional Order on the Alexei Navalny case. According to this, officials from this directorate belonged to the FSB unit that shadowed the activist before he was poisoned in August 2020. Navalny had been treated at the Berlin Charité after his Novichok poisoning.
No autopsy in Germany
A spokesman for the Foreign Office did not want to provide any further information for reasons of privacy protection. All he said was: “The Foreign Office is aware of the case.” The man’s body is said to have already been transferred to Russia. According to “Spiegel” information, the Russian embassy did not agree to an autopsy of the body in Germany. The public prosecutor’s office was unable to conduct a death investigation because the dead person had diplomatic status. So it remains unclear whether there was evidence of third-party debt.