Zoo killer released after five years

Berlin Tiergarten is a dangerous place for those who are politically persecuted. Vietnamese agents were kidnapped there in 2017. a disgraced politician and kidnapped him to Vietnam. Two years later, Russian Vadim Krasikov murdered a Georgian named Selimkhan Changoshvili in Tiergarten, who was fighting against Russian troops in Chechnya.

The killer came up on a bicycle and shot him in the head. As he changed his clothes in the bushes, two young men watched him. The police arrested him quickly. Krasikov had been in custody since the summer of 2019, and now it ended in an unusual way.

According to the logic of the regime, not a criminal

Krasikov is known in Germany as the “Tiergarten murderer”. Large-scale prisoner exchanges are taking place between Russia, the United States, and other countries. On Thursday, he flew to the Turkish capital of Ankara, the epicenter of the exchange. In the logic of the Russian regime, the 58-year-old is not a criminal but a patriot who eliminated enemies of the state. Russian President Vladimir Putin embraced the convicted murderer when he arrived in Moscow on Thursday evening.

In the exchange, Russia handed over German national Patrick S., who was arrested at St. Petersburg airport for having marijuana gummy bears in his luggage. Russia’s ally Belarus also released German national Rico K., who was initially sentenced to death but later pardoned. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was convicted of espionage, and former U.S. soldier Paul Whelan were also released.

German Chancellor Olaf Schulz interrupted his vacation and said late Thursday that the decision to release Krasikov was not easy for anyone. However, the freedom of innocent people imprisoned in Russia outweighs the interests of Krasikov’s imprisonment. The decision was made out of solidarity with the United States and the obligation to protect German nationals.

Extremely severe guilt

Krasikov’s victim, who had applied for asylum in Germany, was 40 years old at the time of the crime. The Berlin Court of Appeal sentenced the Russian to life imprisonment for murder, noting the particularly serious nature of the crime as ruling out the possibility of early release after 15 years. Including pretrial detention, Krasikov has now served five years in prison.

During the trial, the court concluded that the Russian authorities ordered the crime. There was a lot of evidence that Krasikov did not act alone, but had supporters. According to media reports, he entered the EU with false documents. In defending the verdict, the presiding judge said that “the bill was carefully prepared by assistants in Berlin” and spoke of “state terrorism.” After the verdict, the German Foreign Ministry declared two employees of the Russian Embassy as persona non grata.

Germany Still Sticks With Nord Steam 2

The murder strained German-Russian relations but did not fundamentally change them. Despite ample early evidence that Russia had carried out a political pact killing in the middle of the German capital, the government of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel persisted with the Russian-German Nord Steam 2 pipeline project.

Sympathy for Russia was particularly prevalent in eastern Germany after the incident, but it has not diminished. A security policy survey showed that in 2020, Germans favored then-U.S. President Trump over Russian President Vladimir Putin. Tackling the biggest global threatThe absence of a widespread public debate about the zoo’s crimes and their impact on German-Russian relations means that the German government can now agree to release the Tiergarten murderer without risking public outrage.