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Munich Higher Regional Court
Photo: Sven Hoppe / dpa
In the trial at the Munich Higher Regional Court about the planned murder of a Chechen dissident in Germany, the alleged victim, the activist Mochmad Abdurachmanow, described how the assassination plans became known.
An unknown man called him, the 27-year-old said: "He said he had important information for me: that there was a person in Germany who was supposed to kill me, but didn't want to do it."
Assassination order issued by Chechen security apparatus
Through the caller, he contacted the suspected assassin, who lives in a refugee camp in northern Germany.
He told him about the murder plan, for example that the Chechen's place of residence and jogging track had been spied on.
The accused in the trial is a Russian who is said to have worked with the suspected assassin to plan the assassination attempt on the regime critic.
The accused Walid D. is said to have agreed to organize the killing of the Chechen exile opposition figure living in Germany.
Another man should do the deed.
Walid D. is said to have met this man in Chechnya in September 2020 and smuggled him from there to Germany.
D. is said to have received the murder order from a member of the Chechen security apparatus.
The Attorney General accuses him, among other things, of preparing a serious act of violence that endangers the state and of violating the Weapons Act.
The aim of the planned act is said to have been "to silence the brother of the announced victim in particular".
Victim's family threatened in Chechnya
Together with his brother, a well-known Chechen opposition figure living in exile in Sweden, the alleged victim convinced the assigned assassin to go to the police.
The alleged victim and his brother are critics of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who is loyal to Putin.
"We don't want to live by the constitution of the Russian Federation," said the 27-year-old.
"We want to establish a constitutional state." He compared this fight for independence with that of Ukraine.
The alleged victim reported threats that he and his brother received from those close to Kadyrov.
After his brother was temporarily kidnapped, they wanted to flee west via Georgia.
Her family had been threatened at home, for example with their "faces being dismembered".
Since then, some family members have not been able to move freely in the country, have no passports and are constantly being checked, the 27-year-old testified in court.
Asylum procedure rejected
After his descriptions, the judge asked the witness whether he had made it all up, perhaps in order to have better cards in his asylum procedure, which was just rejected in Augsburg.
The 27-year-old denied: "Otherwise I would have to swap places with the accused." In May 2017 he applied for asylum at Munich Airport.
Six months later, that application was denied.
In the meantime, however, even without the murder plans against him, he has "enough evidence" that he is in danger in his homeland.
The case is similar to the so-called »Tiergarten murder« in Berlin.
A Russian man was sentenced to life imprisonment in mid-December 2021 for the shooting of a Georgian in August 2019 in the Kleiner Tiergarten park.
The verdict referred to "state terrorism".
yup/dpa