The Tiergarten Murder
Russian State Terrorism in Germany
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
On 23 August 2019, Selimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian citizen of Chechen nationality, was shot dead in the Kleiner Tiergarten park in Berlin. The perpetrator was caught. He was traveling under a fake identity and, as it later turned out, was an employee of the Russian intelligence service FSB. The victim had fought Russian forces as a field commander during the Second Chechen War. The perpetrator was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder at the end of 2021, with the court establishing a particular burden of guilt, as requested by Germany’s federal prosecutor. The court spoke of state terrorism and assigned the role of principal to President Vladimir Putin. The German government reacted to the state-sponsored contract killing by expelling four diplomats.
(Osteuropa 11/2022, pp. 79–90)