The alleged contract killer from the Kleiner Tiergarten in Berlin has been identified. The Federal Prosecutor's Office called him yesterday Vadim K. According to research of SPIEGEL and its cooperation partners Bellingcat, The Dossier Center and The Insider, this is the 54-year-old Russian citizen Vadim Krasikov.
Using facial recognition software, Krasikov's photos were compared to a picture of the man in custody under the name of Sokolov in Berlin. Result: a match of over 80 percent.
Krasikov entered the EU at the end of August with identification papers identifying him as Vadim Sokolov, 49. On August 23, he shot and killed the Georgian Zalimkahn Kangoshvili in Berlin and was subsequently arrested near the crime scene. Kangoshvili was a former Chechen fighter and had worked for many years in Georgia and Ukraine against Russian interests. Most recently, he applied for asylum in Germany.
The SPIEGEL and its cooperation partners had revealed shortly after the murder that Krasikov had evidently entered Germany under false identity. So was
- his passport in the name Sokolov not registered in the Russian database for passports.
- He was not registered in the Russian entry and exit register, although he had flown shortly before the murder of Russia to Paris.
- He did not have a driver's license ,
- his address for the Schengen area was wrong
- and he was unknown to his alleged employer .
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Further research had shown that the Sokolov staff was banned from registering for Russian national identity papers and that his social security number had been awarded shortly before the murder. Likewise, his passport to Sokolov had been issued shortly before.
On Krasikov's identity, the German investigators came across a canceled international arrest warrant and a search request from Russia in 2014. He was then suspected of murdering a Russian businessman in 2013. Video shows that the perpetrator then approached his victim on a bicycle and then drove away with it after the crime. He then shot his victim in the back and head.
screenshot / life.ru
Screenshot from Russian news program
Also at the Tiergarten murder Krasikov alias Sokolov approached his victim by bicycle. He shot his victim in the body and in the head and fled the bike.
A year after the international arrest warrant, Moscow surprisingly withdrew the search for Krasikov. Shortly thereafter, a national Russian identity document was first issued to the Sokolov staff. Investigators see this as the strongest indication that the Russian state in the murder of the small zoo in August this year might be involved.
The Attorney General is currently examining the takeover of the case because of its "special significance". A decision about it should fall in the coming days.
