The top prosecutor of Germany has announced his accusations of Russia engineering the murder of a man from Georgia while he was in Berlin park. The allegations come at a time when authorities have a charged a suspected contract killer for the murder.
Planned assassination
According to CNN, German officials identified the 40-year-old victim as a citizen of Georgia. He also had Chechen heritage and was named Tornike K. The killer was riding a bicycle in when he shot and killed the victim in Kleiner Tiergarten park in downtown Berlin.
The victim's previous name was Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, and he was killed when he was on his way to midday prayers.
Within hours of the incident, authorities arrested a Russian national that led to the beginning of a murder mystery that left Germany in a stalemate.
The Russian government had denied any connections to the man, but the investigations into the suspect's origins brought the shaky relationship between the two countries into the surface.
Investigators, however, have acquired sufficient evidence to charge the suspect they identified only as Vadim K. The charges are for the murder of the victim and illegal possession of a weapon, as reported by Reuters.
The officials said that the suspect took the orders to kill the man from state authorities and hoped for either financial compensation or had a shared motive with the masterminds of wanting to kill a political rival.
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Denying allegations
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the victim was previously a killer who committed heinous acts on Russian soil and that they did not need Moscow's requests to extradite him.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas considered the murder as an extraordinarily dangerous act and shared his support for the decision of the prosecutors.
The Foreign Ministry requested the attendance of Sergei Nechayev, the Russian ambassador, to make clear their position and to let them know that Moscow knows Berlin has the right to take further steps in the investigation of the case.
Later on, Nechayev stated that Moscow would respond accordingly if Berlin took new reactions against Russia for the murder. He added that their claims were baseless and had no evidence to support them, as reported by BBC.
A German spokesperson also said that the charges the prosecutors decided on include the severe accusation that claims Russia is behind the murder. He added that the Federal Government takes the matter very seriously.
The spokesperson also revealed that the German government would carefully observe the trial until a verdict is reached, also revealing that they expelled two Russian embassy members in December for alleged connections to the case. It was also said that Germany had previously taken actions against Russia over a hacking attack in 2015 on the German Bundestag.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives in parliament's foreign policy coordinator, Juergen Hardt, announced Berlin must further examine sanctions against Russia.
Hardt also added that the federal government must become strict with their sanctions as long as top Russian officials defend the criminals of the Tiergarten incident. He also noted they must gain the support of their European partners to execute such a plan.
