German court accuses Russia of 'state terrorism' over 2019 Berlin park murder

Process participants wait for a verdict at the higher regional court in Berlin, Germany, December 15, 2021, in trial against defendant Vadim K., accused of killing a former Chechen commander in Berlin's Kleiner Tiergarten park in August 2019. Christophe Gateau/Pool via REUTERS

BERLIN (Reuters) - Russia ordered the killing in broad daylight in a Berlin park of a former Chechen militant, a German court found on Wednesday, sentencing the agent who carried out the 2019 act of "state terrorism" to life imprisonment.

Georgian citizen Tornike Khangoshvili was killed with three shots from a Glock pistol on a sunny August day in 2019 in retaliation for his role fighting alongside Chechen separatists against Moscow in the 2000s, judge Olaf Arnoldi said. He sentenced Vadim Krasikov for the "especially serious" crime.