Status: 05.07.2022 7:00 p.m
An employee of the Bellingcat research organization was the most important witness in the Tiergarten murder trial. Apparently, Russia was interested in him, as the “Washington Post” discovered in an investigation into a secret service agent from Austria.
By Silvia Stöber, tagesschau.de
The former agent of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Combating Terrorism (BVT) in Austria was already noticed in connection with the scandal surrounding Wirecard and its manager Jan Marsalek. The Vienna public prosecutor accuses Egisto O. of betraying state secrets. He is said to have requested data on a large number of people for no official reason. He denies the allegations.
The “Washington Post” now reports a particularly explosive person query with reference to documents available to the US newspaper. Egisto O. is said to have carried out the query in December 2020, when he had already been transferred to the police academy.
It’s about Christo Grozev, who played a crucial role in solving the murder in Berlin’s Kleiner Tiergarten. Grozev works for the research organization Bellingcat and clarified the true identity of a Russian man in custody who was arrested near the scene shortly after the murder. Using information in Russian databases, Grozev found out the name of Vadim Krasikov and was able to create movement profiles of him. Based on this evidence and the investigation results of the authorities, the accused was sentenced to life imprisonment as Vadim Krasikov. The presiding judge, Olaf Arnoldi, spoke of an act commissioned by Russian state authorities and described it as state terrorism.
On request from tagesschau.de Grozev confirmed that the Austrian authorities had informed him that his data, including his home address, had been requested. He assumes that the data query was carried out on behalf of Russia. Because Egisto O. spoke to another agent about “our friends” and about a “causa” in which Grozev apparently interfered. “I don’t know in which other ‘Causa’ I should have interfered,” said Grozev. The aim could have been intimidation, shadowing or the preparation of an assassination.
Error analysis of the operation in Berlin
The “Washington Post” also reports that an analysis of the zoo murder was found on Egisto O.’s mobile phone. In the three-page paper, deficiencies in the operation in Berlin were apparently assessed and recommendations were made as to how the Russian secret service could proceed in the future. The analysis thus suggests that a mole or defector may have provided information that could have jeopardized the plan, since Krasikov was arrested while trying to escape.
According to a police officer, it took only a few seconds for the perpetrator to escape disguised as a tourist on an e-scooter. His undoing was that two witnesses saw him changing his clothes in a bush and throwing crimes into the Spree. Since the police who had been summoned arrived after a few minutes, they were able to catch the perpetrator in time.
The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office is still investigating one or more possible accomplices who may have scouted out the victim, obtained the objects of the crime and organized the escape route. A Russian with a similar pseudo-identity as Krasikov is considered suspicious. He is said to have been in the EU before the crime and to be connected to another murder in Istanbul.
In his pleading, the representative of the federal prosecutor’s office, prosecutor Lars Malskies, mentioned the case of a Russian diplomat. A few weeks before the verdict, he was found dead on the street in front of the Russian embassy building complex in Berlin. The German authorities could not determine the cause of the fall from a window because the man had diplomatic status. However, his name became known. Bellingcat discovered in him connections to the Russian secret service FSB, with which Krasikov is said to have been in contact.