Berlin court sentences Russian contract killer to life in prison

BERLIN (DPA), 15 DEC, 2021 – A 56-year-old Russian national has been sentenced to life in prison for the contract killing of a Georgian man in a park in Berlin more than two years ago.

The court heard that the assassination had been carried out on behalf of Russian state authorities.

The killing took place on August 23, 2019, in the Kleiner Tiergarten park. Prosecutors say it was an act of retaliation for the Georgian’s participation in the second Chechen war and his “enmity towards the Russian state.” The man who was killed was a 40-year-old Georgian of Chechen origin who had been living in Germany as an asylum seeker since the end of 2016 and had been classified as a Chechen terrorist by Russian authorities.

The court heard that the man convicted of the killing was an officer from the Russian domestic intelligence service, the FSB, who had travelled to Berlin using a fake identity in order to carry out the contract killing