Thread by @bellingcat

In August 2019 a 40-year-old Georgian of Chechen origin, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, was killed by three shots from a silenced pistol in Berlin’s Kleine Tiergarten. Today, in a Berlin court, the judge in the trial of the alleged killer will pass down his verdict.

The killer, who rode up to the victim on a bicycle, was quickly apprehended, and identified as Vadim Sokolov. However, within a week Bellingcat was able to reveal that the suspect had travelled under a false name: bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

Using various Russian sources and databases of government data we could find no sign of Vadim Sokolov, pictured below, in any Russian databases, including the Russian passport database, indicating his identity had been purged from Russian databases.

A month later, Bellingcat and partners were able to debunk a false lead put out to the media that Vadim Sokolov was Vladimir Stepanov, and establish more connections between Vadim Sokolov and the Russian state.
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

We discovered that Vadim Sokolov was issued an international passport, tax identification number, and other documents required to acquire a visa just days before he applied for the visa, more strong indications of state level intervention in producing his identity.

A few months later, we finally had the real identity of the suspect. Vadim Sokolov is in fact Vadim Krasikov, and was a key suspect in the murder of a Russian businessman in 2013, where the killer approached the victim on a bicycle before shooting him.
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

An Interpol warrant was also issued by Moscow. However, just over a year later, in July 2015, the Interpol notice and national search warrants were withdrawn, implying that the suspect had been detained, or alternatively no longer a suspect in the crime.

Airline booking data reviewed by Bellingcat showed that a year after the termination of his search warrant, Krasikov resumed air travel across Russia, with multiple trips to occupied Crimea and even to a neighbouring Central Asian country.

This was further evidence that at that point in time Krasikov was no longer wanted by Russian authorities, who would have been aware of his travels, including border crossings.

Nearly all records of the existence of the suspect Vadim Krasikov had been purged from Russian state databases. A criminal case file in his name does not exist in the central police database, despite multiple references to the crime.

Based on this, and other data related to the fake Vadim Sokolov identity it became clear this was state sanctioned action. However, this purging of data by the Russian state was not enough to hide his real identity, and his past, from Bellingcat.

We then discovered he was wanted for another murder, and had ties to one of the FSB's spetznaz units known as “Vympel”, along with evidence of the use of proxy assassins by the Russian state.
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

A second individual was identified by Bellingcat as being linked to the Berlin case, who himself was linked to individuals involved with FSB spies connected to the murder of a Chechen national in Istanbul in 2015.
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

This "Roman Davydov" was identified by Bellingcat as Roman Demyanchenko, a former FSB Spetsnaz officer and current undercover FSB asset working under the cover of the Vympel Group of companies. bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

As the trial began in Berlin, new evidence emerged confirming our prior identification of Vadim Krasikov, including family photos showing the same tattoo, and scar, as "Vadim Sokolov"
bellingcat.com/news/2021/03/1…

Bellingcat was invited to provide its findings and give testimony evidence in the trial, which filled the gap left by Russian authorities who refused to provide German prosecutors with information on Krasikov.

One major question for the verdict is whether or not the judge will accept the evidence we presented as enough to link the alleged killer to the Russian state - the first alleged state murder on trial in recent European history.

The significance of such a verdict would no doubt be the first major test of German-Russian relations for the new German government, as would be the reaction of the EU and Germany’s allies.

VERDICT - The suspect was found guilty of murder, sanctioned by the state, and given a life sentence.

A key part of the decision, the court was convinced that the murder was carried out on behalf of the state authorities of Russia. Russian state sanctioned murder in Germany, so now what's the political reaction to such assassinations?

Bellingcat's research has identified the same FSB assassination team was involved with likely other murders, in addition to the work of other Russian assassination squads working inside Russia and abroad.

Sergey Nechayev, Russian ambassador to Berlin comments on the verdict: "We consider this verdict a biased, politically motivated decision, seriously aggravates the already difficult Russian-German relations."
rbc.ru/politics/15/12…