Status: 12/15/2021 12:08 p.m.
More than two years after the so-called Tiergarten Murder in Berlin, the accused Russian was sentenced to life imprisonment. The court is convinced that it is murder – on behalf of Russia.
In the trial of the so-called Tiergarten murder in Berlin, the defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Berlin Superior Court found the 56-year-old Russian guilty of murder. It also convicted the man of illegal gun possession. The judges followed the federal prosecutor’s request with the sentence.
The State Protection Chamber regards it as proven that the accused acted on behalf of the Russian state. “The act was meticulously prepared by helpers stationed in Berlin,” said the presiding judge Olaf Arnoldi when giving reasons for the verdict. The court thus followed the arguments of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office.
The process has been running under strict security precautions since autumn 2020. The ruling is likely to put even more strain on German-Russian relations. The Federal Government had already drawn the first conclusions after the Federal Prosecutor began the investigation two years ago and accused the Russian government of a lack of cooperation.
Fatal shots in front of passers-by
According to the court’s conviction, the 56-year-old approached the Georgian from behind on a bicycle in the Kleiner Tiergarten park in Berlin on August 23, 2019. At close range, he initially fired two shots with a silencer pistol at the 40-year-old. When the victim was on the ground, he shot him in the back of the head.
The person killed had been living as an asylum seeker in Germany since the end of 2016. He had been classified as a terrorist by Russian authorities. The federal prosecutor sees this as the motive for the killing. The man was seen as an enemy of the state in particular because he fought against Russia in the Chechnya war. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the man a “bandit” and a “murderer”.
Defendant denies ties to the state
The judges are convinced that the defendant is an officer of the Russian domestic secret service FSB, who is assigned to further contract killings abroad. He is said to have been given a false identity for the act in Berlin.
At the beginning of the trial, the accused himself had declared through his lawyers that his name was Vadim S., 50 years old and a civil engineer. He denied ties to the Russian state and the FSB secret service.