The Investigative Committee of Russia closed the criminal prosecution of the citizen of Georgia Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, who participated in the preparation of the terrorist attacks in Moscow and Beslan. This was announced on Thursday, October 22, by RIA Novosti in response to a request.
“Criminal prosecution against Khangoshvili Zelimkhan Sultanovich, a native of the village of Duisi, Akhmeta region of Georgia, on the fact of his participation on the night of June 22, 2004, in the attack of gangs led by Shamil Basayev on law enforcement officers, military personnel <...> Ingushetia <...> was terminated in connection with his death, ”the department said.
On October 10, a source in the power structures of Russia said that Khangoshvili participated in the preparation of a terrorist attack in the Moscow metro and in Beslan in 2004, and in 2013 organized a channel for the supply of terrorists from the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia to Syria through Turkey.
On October 7, the Berlin prosecutor’s office filed charges against Russian citizen Vadim Sokolov with the murder of Khangoshvili and illegal possession of semi-automatic firearms.
According to the investigation, the accused, disguised as a tourist, arrived in Paris from Moscow on August 17, 2019. After that, he headed to Berlin, where a murder victim asked for asylum in 2016. On the day of the crime, according to law enforcement officers, the attacker approached his victim from behind and shot him from a pistol with a silencer, and then shot him twice more in the head of the fallen man.
The murder of a Georgian citizen in a Berlin park became known to the public on August 24, 2019. In 2002, Khangoshvili was put on the wanted list in Russia on suspicion of terrorism. In Germany, the victim lived under the name Tornike Kavtarashvili.
The next day, a 49-year-old Russian citizen was arrested on suspicion of involvement and was put on the federal wanted list in Russia in 2014 in a contract murder case.
On December 4, 2019, the German Foreign Ministry declared two employees of the Russian Embassy and two employees of the Russian special services persona non grata, as it considered that Moscow was taking insufficient part in the investigation of the crime. In turn, the Russian Foreign Ministry declared two employees of the German embassy persona non grata.
In February 2020, the German federal prosecutor’s office re-arrested a murder suspect. In addition to accusations of shooting a man, the department charged the man with a crime related to illegal possession of weapons.