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<\/p>\nRUSSIA ordered the broad daylight killing of a former Chechen militant in a Berlin park, a German court has found.<\/p>\n
Tornike Khangoshvili, also known as Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, was gunned down will three shots from a Glock pistol in August 2019 in retaliation for his role fighting alongside Chechen separatists against Moscow in the 2000s, judge Olaf Arnoldi said. <\/p>\n
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The agent who carried out the act of "state terrorism", Vadim Krasikov, was sentenced to life imprisonment for what the judge described as an "especially serious" crime.<\/p>\n
Germany summoned the Russian ambassador after the ruling, telling him that two of his embassy's 101 diplomatic staff would be expelled, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said.<\/p>\n
The finding could heighten pressure on a German government barely a week in office to toughen its stance towards Moscow amid warnings that Russia could be contemplating an invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
"State organs of the government of the Russian Federation took the decision to liquidate Tornike Khangoshvili in Berlin," Arnoldi said, adding that Russia had issued Krasikov with false papers with which to travel for the killing.<\/p>\n
"Khangashvili had given up the fight against the Russian Federation years before. He had not held a weapon in his hands since 2008," Arnoldi added.<\/p>\n
"This was not an act of self-defence by Russia. This was and is nothing other than state terrorism."<\/p>\n