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MUNICH, June 15 (Reuters) – A Russian citizen went on trial in Munich on Wednesday on prices of agreeing to hold out the contract killing of a Chechen dissident on behalf of individuals linked to Ramzan Kadyrov, strongman ruler of Russia’s autonomous Chechnya area.
German prosecutors believed the thwarted killing was meant to frighten into silence the 27-year-old supposed sufferer’s elder brother, one other activist for Chechen independence who lives in exile in Stockholm.
“For the Chechen authorities, the supposed sufferer and his brother have been and are enemies of the state,” Frank Stuppi of the federal prosecutor’s workplace stated exterior the courthouse.
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Prosecutors have stated {that a} member of Kadyrov’s safety equipment contracted the accused Legitimate D. for the killing within the first half of 2020.
They stated he agreed to the plan, obtained a gun with ammunition and a silencer and scoped out the world the place the supposed sufferer lived.
“Because of tricks to the police, the accused may very well be arrested and the crime prevented,” Stuppi stated.
Legitimate D., whose full title is withheld from publication below German privateness regulation, denies the prosecutors’ allegations, his defence legal professional was cited by Der Spiegel journal as saying.
Earlier this yr, German media reported that the supposed sufferer was Mokhmad Abdurakhmanov, whose brother Tumso was himself the goal of a homicide try in February 2020.
Mokhmad is an outspoken critic of Kadyrov.
“No honourable Chechen would enter Ukrainian territory with a weapon in hand to struggle for the pursuits of the Russian Federation and its President Vladimir Putin,” he stated in a current YouTube video, in keeping with public broadcaster BR -a reference to Chechens preventing on the facet of Russian forces that invaded Ukraine in February.
The trial, set to run till December, casts a renewed highlight on the actions of Russian brokers in Germany and Europe extra broadly, together with these of contract killers from Chechnya, a lawless fiefdom the place Kadyrov has been given a free hand by Moscow.
Final yr, a Russian was convicted of the 2019 homicide of Chechen-born Georgian citizen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in broad daylight in a central Berlin park. Russian citizen Vadim Krasikov was despatched to jail for all times for the killing.
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Reporting by Ayhan Uyanik and Louisa Off, writing by Thomas Escritt, Enhancing by William Maclean and Mark Heinrich
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