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Crime scene Kleiner Tiergarten in Berlin: Zelimkhan Khangoshvili was shot here in August 2019
Photo: Christoph Soeder / dpa
The Russian domestic secret service FSB has apparently also given the wife of the alleged zoo murderer Vadim Krasikov a false identity.
This is borne out by new research by SPIEGEL and the investigative platforms Bellingcat and The Insider.
Accordingly, the woman flew under a false name shortly after her husband was exposed by SPIEGEL and his partners in December 2019 from Moscow to the Crimea annexed by Russia.
She probably used her husband's cell phone in the months after the attack:
An analysis of the telephone connections and location data shows that she switched off the device on December 6, 2019 at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport.
A telephone assigned to her was again put into operation on December 7th in the Crimea.
Vadim Krasikov is on trial in Berlin.
He is said to have shot the Georgian exile Zelimkhan Khangoshvili on behalf of the FSB in broad daylight in the Kleiner Tiergarten in Berlin.
Khangoshvili had fought against troops loyal to Moscow in the second Chechnya war and worked against Russian interests in Georgia and later in Ukraine.
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Trial in Berlin against the alleged murderer Vadim Krasikov
Photo: Pool / Getty Images
According to research by SPIEGEL and his partners, Krasikov was given a false identity by the FSB for the murder in Berlin.
Before the crime, he was regularly in FSB properties, including training centers for special forces.
The fact that the FSB has also given his wife a cover identity is further evidence that the Russian state is behind the Tiergarten murder.
The Kremlin has always contradicted this.
Krasikov himself denies having that name at all.
His name is Vadim Sokolov, he said several times, as in the identification documents noted on entry into the EU.
An FSB man was on board
Wife Krasikova was accompanied by her daughter on her flight to the Crimea.
The passenger lists on the flight from Moscow to Crimea show two travelers under different names that match Krasikova and her daughter: the birthdays given are the same as the real ones, only the year of birth has been changed by one year.
The analysis of their telephone data suggests that the wife and daughter were on the flight.
The research also shows that the wife was closely accompanied by employees of the Russian security apparatus.
In the days after the exposure, she often called an FSB employee on her husband's mobile number.
An FSB man was also on board their plane from Moscow to Crimea.
The person concerned - apparently a man with the rank of general - has been flying there every month since then.
He could possibly also be of interest to the prosecutors in the ongoing Tiergarten proceedings: According to documents from European consulate circles, the man tried in February 2019 at the Greek Consulate General in Moscow for a 90-day visa, valid for an allegedly tourist stay in the European Union between April and October.
The murder took place during this period.
However, the Greek authorities denied the 58-year-old the paper and allowed him to stay for a month between the end of April and the end of May.
It was obviously not an attractive period for the FSB man.
An evaluation of Russian travel databases shows that he apparently did not fly to Europe during that time.
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