At noon on August 23, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili is on his way to Friday prayers. In Berlin's Kleiner Tiergarten, a cyclist approaches him from behind. The shooter gives three shots from a pistol with silencer, type "Glock 26", from: with one he strikes down Khangoshvili, then he shoots him from a short distance twice in the head. The Georgian is dead on the spot.
The murder in Berlin's Moabit district, barely two kilometers as the crow flies from the Chancellor's Office and the Bundestag, causes a stir internationally and could become a diplomatic crisis case.
Research by SPIEGEL, the investigative websites Bellingcat and The Insider and the London Dossier Center show that the act could have been supported or even commissioned by the Russian state. (Read more about this here.)
The murder is reminiscent of the poison gas attack on the Russian ex-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia in Salisbury, UK in early March 2018 - and is therefore politically explosive. The German appeasement policy against Russia had failed, the British security expert Edward Lucas recently told the SPIEGEL.
Who was the murdered?
Khangoshvili had fought Russia in the second Chechen war. Later he worked for years as an informer and mediator for Georgian and Ukrainian anti-terrorist authorities. US services such as the CIA also benefited from his contacts in the hard-to-reach Caucasus region and the Chechen community abroad.
After constant threats and an attack on him, he fled first to Ukraine and later to Germany. An asylum application of his family was initially rejected in Germany.
What is known about the alleged perpetrator?
The alleged murderer had arrived from Moscow via Paris and Warsaw to Germany. He was caught minutes after the fact. Teenagers watched him as he sank the murder weapon and a wig in the river.
One week after the murder reported the SPIEGEL and his research partners that the identity of the suspect was fake: A passport, which he carried with him, he was identified as a Russian citizen named Vadim Sokolov. But in the Russian passport system, no passport with his personal details was stored. In addition, the passport was issued by a department of the Russian Ministry of Interior, which in the past had also issued passports for agents of the Russian military intelligence service GRU.
Eliot Higgins
Excerpt from the tax database of the Russian Federation
Further research by SPIEGEL, Bellingcat, The Insider and Dossier Center suggests that the Russian state could have helped to create the false identity:
- For example, in the current database of national Russian identity papers, his personal details are blocked: "Person protected by law ... contact an administrator to obtain the file". Such notes were found in databases after the disclosure of the alleged Skripal assassins by Bellingcat also in the personal data of other Russian intelligence officials.
- Another conspicuous feature is found in the Russian tax database: On June 16, 2019, at the age of 49, "Sokolov" appears for the first time. Since Russian citizens are automatically registered in this database when they start working, they would not have worked for the first time in their lives until they were almost 50 years old. It is more likely that the entry was made to facilitate his application for a Schengen visa.
THE MIRROR / BELLINGCAT
According to image analysis by the University of Bradford not the same person: Vladimir Andreewitsch Stepanov (left and center) and the alleged "Sokolov" (right)
What is the status of the investigation?
The prosecution and the State Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA) Berlin are involved in the investigation. As the SPIEGEL learned from security circles, the detained suspects should have a "good connection to the Russian Embassy" and behave in prison "almost militarily exemplary". According to SPIEGEL information, investigators see no personal motives or a connection with organized crime.
Also on the murder weapon new details have become known: The investigators assume that the alleged murderer received the weapon on the way to Berlin in Warsaw from supporters, reported recently the "time". The pistol was sold in 1986 from Austria to Estonia, a republic of the then Soviet Union. Accordingly, the barrel of the weapon had been exchanged, possibly to cover tracks.
According to SPIEGEL information, security circles say that the final proof of a murder on behalf of Russia has so far been lacking, but everything points to state support by Moscow. Nevertheless, the Attorney General has not yet taken over the investigation. That would be conceivable if the person behind the deed could be the "secret service of a foreign power". The espionage department of the Federal Prosecutor's Office is responsible for the prosecution of "intelligence agent activity". The background is that in such a case the external security of Germany could be endangered.
How does the policy react?
The fact that the general prosecutor has not yet drawn the investigation, in some places for incomprehension: "The act seems to carry significant and clear political fingerprints," said the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag, Norbert Röttgen (CDU), the SPIEGEL. "It seems incomprehensible why the case has not yet been made a matter for the Attorney General."
THE MIRROR / Bellingcat / Bradford University
Result of forensic photo analysis: alleged Tiergarten murderer arrested in Berlin "Sokolov" (1 and 3) and a murderer detained in Russia Stepanov (2 and 4) are not the same person
The fate of Khangoshvili's family is also a concern of politics: Foreign, domestic, and security politicians from various parties recently spoke out in favor of the SPIEGEL for the family's right of residence. According to experts, her ex-partner and four children would be in mortal danger should they be deported to Georgia.
What is the Federal Government doing?
While the Foreign Office is said to have received no contact to Russian authorities, according to SPIEGEL information, the Federal Intelligence Service and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution should be in contact with the Russian domestic intelligence service FSB in connection with the case. The Federal Ministry of the Interior is according to own data in contact with the foreign office and other authorities.
So far, the federal government with public statements and reviews back. In other countries, this is sometimes viewed skeptically: "I have the impression that they are trying to play it down instead of playing it up," says security expert Lucas.
What is the reaction of the Kremlin?
Russia denies that the murder could be related to intelligence activities in the country. "This case has nothing to do with the Russian state and official organs, and I strongly reject any link between this incident, this murder and the Russian government," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov a few days after the fact.
Even Kremlin-related Russian media hold back - unlike in the case of Skripal - so far back. At Skripal, there has been a massive disinformation campaign involving Russian media and officials, says Liubov Tsybulska, head of the Hybrid Warfare Analytical Group in the Ukraine, SPIEGEL.
In contrast, much less is reported about the murder in the Kleine Tiergarten. Tsybulska, whose expertise includes the analysis of disinformation and hybrid warfare, sees in the different reactions of crime scene countries a possible reason for the different reporting. "While Britain has taken action, the Germans are very lenient and that reflects Moscow."
4D propaganda: Dismiss, distort, distract, dismay. pic.twitter.com/3oQ4shog3F
- Ben Nimmo (@benimmo) November 27, 2015Ben Nimmo of "Graphika", a company specializing in the analysis of social media, also suspects a reason for the previous failure of a Russian propaganda offensive. While in the case of Skripal, the then British Prime Minister, Theresa May, blamed the Russian state directly in the British parliament, there was no such reaction from the German government.
But if the German government abandons its restraint, Nimmo told SPIEGEL, Russia could react with a disinformation campaign similar to that in the Skripal case. The hallmarks of such are the "four Ds" of propaganda: "dismiss, distort, distract, dismay". Take down, twist, distract, deter.
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