Chechen War veteran and Georgian citizen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili gets killed in Germany
By Tsotne Pataraia
Friday, August 30
Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, Georgian citizen who was killed in Germany, was buried today in Duisi village of Pankisi Gorge.
Khangoshvili, 40, was killed in Berlin on Friday. He was shot twice in the head. The attack took place in the Kleiner Tiergarten park in Moabit, central Berlin, just before midday on 23 August. Witnesses said the killer approached from behind on a bicycle and shot him twice in the head, then sped off. Khangoshvili was going to the mosque for a Friday prayer when a bicyclist shot him.
Police have arrested a 49-year-old Russian man. They captured the offender near the scene of the murder as he tried to throw his bicycle and gun into the river. The suspect, named only as Vadim S. reportedly had a large sum of cash in his flat, searched by investigators. He has been formally accused of "treacherous killing". Vadim S traveled to Berlin from Moscow via Paris a few days before the attack and had a return ticket to Moscow. German prosecutors are now considering whether there was a political motive behind the killing.
Zelimkhan Khangoshvili was a field commander during the second Chechen War and was also a close ally of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, fighting against Russian forces in the North Caucasus, which is why he was wanted and continuously persecuted by Russian police.
In 2015, Khangoshvili was wounded in the center of Tbilisi. The family then blamed the Russian special services for the incident. The case is still under investigation. EMC, an NGO which has been defending the rights of Khangoshvili, accuses Georgian investigative agencies of inaction and serious shortcomings in their handling of that crime. Khangoshvili's family left Georgia after the incident.
Khangoshvili was also involved in the notorious Lapankuri special operation in the Lopota gorge, near the Georgia-Russia border in August 2012. He was reportedly involved in negotiations during the special operation as a mediator.
Relatives of Khangoshvili link his murder to Russian security services and rule out any connection to the Lapankuri special operation:
“There is no fault connected to Zelimkhani in Lapankuri special operation. On the contrary, he was the only person who dared to enter the woods alone to convince the fighters to go back. At first, there was a suspicion that had been murdered for this reason, but that suspicion had disappeared. We have more doubts about the Russian special services, and so does the German prosecution and the media,” Nona Khangoshvili, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili ‘s cousin said.
Moscow denies any link to the assassination of an ethnic Chechen citizen of Georgia and a veteran of the second Chechen War. Representatives of Kremlin said on Wednesday that the murder of an ethnic Chechen exile in Berlin last week had nothing to do with the Russian state or its official agencies: “I categorically reject any link between this incident, this murder, and official Russia,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.
Various international media outlets covered the case. BBC writes that "a Chechen in Berlin fighting a Russian army was allegedly killed by a Russian agent in Berlin Park.” According to German media, the investigators believe that the murder of Georgian citizen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin was ordered. As reported by “Spiegel”, intelligence services in several NATO member states believe the killing has a political motive. The same “Spiegel” also writes that after his assassination attempt in Georgia, Khangoshvili traveled to Ukraine, where he worked with local security services and fought against Russian influence. According to “Deutsche Welle,” Khangoshvili served in the Anti-Terrorism Division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia and was associated with the country's secret services.
