Russia denies role in Berlin assassination of Chechen asylum seeker-USA SAYS RUSSIA DID IT
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it got deletedat least put it in the thread you made yesterday
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
IDK WTF these mods are doing bruh.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Duh 
Chechen 'execution' in Berlin linked to Russian intelligence
The suspect in the killing of a Chechen dissident in Berlin holds a Russian passport. His papers indicate a possible link with Russian security services, according to reports in German media.
The man suspected of killing a Chechen war veteran in Berlin this week likely traveled from Russia under a false identity, German news magazine Spiegel reported on Friday.
Moscow has denied any links with the killing. However, details in the suspect's passports and visa application indicate a possible connection with Russia's security apparatus, the magazine reported. Spiegel said its findings were based on a joint research by its own staff, the UK-based Bellingcat investigative group, and Russia-based The Insider.
German authorities have identified the suspect as 49-year-old Russian national Vadim Andreevich S. He was arrested soon after an ethnic Chechen from Georgia was shot in the head at close range in a Berlin park.
When searching for the suspect's identity, investigators found no matches for his name and data in Russia's national passport database or the national drivers' registry. Also, according to Spiegel, the number on his passport indicates it had been issued by a section in Russia's Interior Ministry that has previously issued passports for agents of Russia's military intelligence.
When applying for a visa, the man provided a non-existent address in Saint Petersburg as his residence.
French visa
A separate report by Bellingcat notes that the passport was issued less than two weeks before the suspect flew to France, from where he traveled to Berlin. The travel document is also a non-biometric variety, without fingerprint data, these are only issued in emergencies when the applicant has no time to wait for the newer-type passport.
According to Bellingcat, the suspect used his new passport to apply for a visa at the French consulate in Moscow on July 29. He stated his occupation only as a "senior company employee" without specifying the company's name, and provided the fake address. However, he was quickly given a 6-month, multi-entry visa and was able to leave the country just two days later.
Usually, Russian border officials are required to check the passport against the national passport database before allowing passengers to leave the country. As the suspect's passport is currently not listed, Bellingcat says, it is possible that it had been in the database at the time of the trip and that the entry has since been deleted. Alternatively, authorities were instructed to let him through, the investigators say.
After the man identified as Vadim Andreevich S. was arrested in Berlin last week, German authorities said he would be kept in detention on charges of "perfidious murder." The Russian embassy said it was "in contact" with the German side.
Echoes of Skripal
The victim, Zelimkhan K. had fought against Russian forces in the second Chechen war of 1999-2002. He also recruited and armed a unit to fight in the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, according to Bellingcat.
The 40-year-old veteran had apparently survived multiple attempts on his life in recent years, including a failed assassination in Tbilisi in 2015. He then fled to Ukraine and, in 2016, asked for asylum in Germany. Russian officials have described him as an Islamic terrorist, according to the Spiegel.
The killing in Berlin comes about a year and a half after Russian double agent Sergey Skripal and his daughter were poisoned in Salisbury, in an incident the UK blamed on Russia's military intelligence. Moscow has denied any wrongdoing.
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Chechen 'execution' in Berlin linked to Russian intelligence
The suspect in the killing of a Chechen dissident in Berlin holds a Russian passport. His papers indicate a possible link with Russian security services, according to reports in German media.
The man suspected of killing a Chechen war veteran in Berlin this week likely traveled from Russia under a false identity, German news magazine Spiegel reported on Friday.
Moscow has denied any links with the killing. However, details in the suspect's passports and visa application indicate a possible connection with Russia's security apparatus, the magazine reported. Spiegel said its findings were based on a joint research by its own staff, the UK-based Bellingcat investigative group, and Russia-based The Insider.
German authorities have identified the suspect as 49-year-old Russian national Vadim Andreevich S. He was arrested soon after an ethnic Chechen from Georgia was shot in the head at close range in a Berlin park.
When searching for the suspect's identity, investigators found no matches for his name and data in Russia's national passport database or the national drivers' registry. Also, according to Spiegel, the number on his passport indicates it had been issued by a section in Russia's Interior Ministry that has previously issued passports for agents of Russia's military intelligence.
When applying for a visa, the man provided a non-existent address in Saint Petersburg as his residence.
French visa
A separate report by Bellingcat notes that the passport was issued less than two weeks before the suspect flew to France, from where he traveled to Berlin. The travel document is also a non-biometric variety, without fingerprint data, these are only issued in emergencies when the applicant has no time to wait for the newer-type passport.
According to Bellingcat, the suspect used his new passport to apply for a visa at the French consulate in Moscow on July 29. He stated his occupation only as a "senior company employee" without specifying the company's name, and provided the fake address. However, he was quickly given a 6-month, multi-entry visa and was able to leave the country just two days later.
Usually, Russian border officials are required to check the passport against the national passport database before allowing passengers to leave the country. As the suspect's passport is currently not listed, Bellingcat says, it is possible that it had been in the database at the time of the trip and that the entry has since been deleted. Alternatively, authorities were instructed to let him through, the investigators say.
After the man identified as Vadim Andreevich S. was arrested in Berlin last week, German authorities said he would be kept in detention on charges of "perfidious murder." The Russian embassy said it was "in contact" with the German side.
Echoes of Skripal
The victim, Zelimkhan K. had fought against Russian forces in the second Chechen war of 1999-2002. He also recruited and armed a unit to fight in the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, according to Bellingcat.
The 40-year-old veteran had apparently survived multiple attempts on his life in recent years, including a failed assassination in Tbilisi in 2015. He then fled to Ukraine and, in 2016, asked for asylum in Germany. Russian officials have described him as an Islamic terrorist, according to the Spiegel.
The killing in Berlin comes about a year and a half after Russian double agent Sergey Skripal and his daughter were poisoned in Salisbury, in an incident the UK blamed on Russia's military intelligence. Moscow has denied any wrongdoing.
@88m3 @ADevilYouKhow @wire28 @dtownreppin214
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ADevilYouKhow
Rhyme Reason
Seems legit
ADevilYouKhow
Rhyme Reason
Painfully transparent time for Berlin to wake up
:ALERTRED:
WSJ News Exclusive | U.S. Says Russia Orchestrated Chechen Rebel’s Murder in Germany
U.S. Says Russia Orchestrated Chechen Rebel’s Murder in Germany
The murder is rekindling concerns that Moscow is ramping up a foreign assassination campaign against perceived enemies abroad
The body of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian commander who had fought against Russia during a Chechen uprising, was carried at his funeral in Duisi village, the Pankisi Gorge valley, in Georgia, on Aug. 29. PHOTO: ZURAB TSERTSVADZE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
By
Bojan Pancevski in Berlin,
Alan Cullison and
Michael R. Gordon in Washington
Sept. 10, 2019 11:59 am ET
U.S. officials believe Russia was behind the murder last month of a former Chechen rebel in Germany, U.S. officials said Tuesday, latest fatality in a flurry of assassinations that has claimed the lives of the country’s perceived enemies abroad.
The victim, a 40-year-old Georgian commander who had fought against Russia during a Chechen uprising, was gunned down in a Berlin park on Aug. 23 on his way to a local mosque. Minutes later, German police arrested a Russian man attempting to leave the scene on an electric scooter after he discarded a pistol and silencer.
The murder of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili is rekindling concerns that Moscow is ramping up a foreign assassination campaign. Last year, Western governments expelled more than 100 Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning in the U.K. of a former Russian spy and his daughter, which London has blamed on the Russian military foreign-intelligence service GRU.
The assertion by American officials mark the first time that the U.S. said that Russia is linked to the killing. German officials initially said the killing might be related to organized crime.
“The United States believes that Russia is responsible for this assassination,” a U.S. official said.
Germany released this image of the suspected killer, who has not been identified. PHOTO: BERLIN STATE POLICE
German authorities haven’t commented further about the attack and the man in their custody despite swirling rumors that the killing might have been politically motivated. The Kremlin hasn’t responded to requests for comment. It has denied any involvement in Mr. Khangoshvili’s death.
U.S. officials declined to say which government officials or organizations in Russia were involved in the alleged plot to kill Mr. Khangoshvili.
The Kremlin has emphatically denied any involvement in killings overseas even though Russia formally legalized the practice in 2006. Since then several Kremlin opponents have died in attacks in the Middle East, Turkey and in Ukraine. Attacks in Europe have been rarer.
The absence of a German government reaction to Mr. Khangoshvili’s murder has sparked criticism from opposition parties that Berlin is eager to avoid a confrontation with Russia. A spokesman for the German government refused to comment, and said the investigation was ongoing.
The Berlin prosecutor’s office, which is leading the investigation, refused to comment. But in a sign of the mounting suspicions, U.S. officials and one German official familiar with the case said Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, had now joined the probe. The BND didn’t respond to a written request for comment.
One official said the suspect had recently come out of Russian prison after serving a murder sentence. Upon his release, he was given a bona fide Russian passport to the name of Vadim Sokolov, who U.S. officials believed to be a cover. Within days, he used the document to apply at France’s Moscow Embassy for a special visa that allows holders to travel freely through Europe’s Schengen document-free travel bloc.
“A fake identity with a real passport can only be provided by authorities in Russia,” one U.S. official said.
The suspect then flew to Paris and from there traveled to Warsaw, Poland, where he stayed for several days before traveling on to Berlin. He rented out a room at a Warsaw hotel and left his luggage inside when he departed for Berlin, with the intention of returning, said a senior Polish government official.
Germany released this image of the bicycle the accused killer used to try to flee. PHOTO: BERLIN STATE POLICE
In Berlin, the suspect, whose real identity remains unknown, is thought to have been briefed by accomplices about the daily routine of Mr. Khangoshvili. Around midday on Friday, Aug. 23, the suspected killer confronted the Chechen émigré in a park in central Berlin as Mr. Khangoshvili was on his way to the mosque in which he regularly worshiped.
The suspect rode to the victim using a bicycle the officials said had been placed near the scene before the shooting. He sped toward Mr. Khangoshvili and shot him twice in the head with a Glock 26 handgun fitted with a silencer in full view of passersby, people familiar with the investigation said.
The suspected assassin then hid in a bush, changed his clothes and disposed of the gun and the bicycle in the Spree River near the park where the murder took place, according to police. Witnesses called the police, who arrested the suspect as he was about to make off on an electric scooter, police said.
German police are now investigating who procured the bicycle and the scooter. The suspect was intending to travel back to Poland after the killing, according to the official familiar with the probe.
Police are likely to run into uncertainties in determining who, precisely, the gunman was working for inside Russia. Western officials say that Russian assassinations outside its borders have traditionally been directed either by the federal government in Moscow, or by Chechnya’s pro-Kremlin leader, Ramzon Kadyrov, who commands a security apparatus of ethnic Chechens.
But two people familiar with the investigation say there is another possibility—namely, that the murder was ordered by Chechen authorities, not Moscow, but still executed with the help of Russian operatives who fitted the assassin with a fake identity and new passport.
Friends of Mr. Khangoshvili said he had for years dodged attempted assassinations and that his death in Berlin capped a career of fighting Moscow, first as a field commander and eventually as a hunted refugee.
A confidante of Chechnya’s former president, Aslan Maskhadov, he distinguished himself as a midlevel commander in the breakaway region’s second war against Russia in the early 2000s. One acquaintance said he likely aroused the hatred of Russia’s security services for his role in a raid on the Russian city of Nazran in 2004 in which dozens of security service officers died.
After rebel resistance was crushed inside Russia, Mr. Khangoshvili fled with others to the neighboring state of Georgia, where for several years he was employed informally by the Georgian government, specializing in counterintelligence against the Russians. There, he narrowly escaped a kidnap attempt and an ambush in which his car was riddled with bullets.
He left Georgia in 2015, hoping to find work in Ukraine, which was fighting its own war against Russia, but in Kiev he failed to find a job with the Ukraine’s premier security service, the SBU. Amid a spate of assassinations, he feared for his safety and left with his wife for Germany.
In Germany, Mr. Khangoshvili applied for refugee status, but was refused repeated requests for special protection from the German government, said Givi Targamadze, a former official in the Georgian government who kept in touch with him until recently. At the time of his death, Mr. Khangoshvili was still trying to obtain state-appointed bodyguards through the German court system, said Mr. Targamadze.
“He felt that even though he wasn’t able to get the protection he asked for, he felt relatively safe in Germany,” said Mr. Targamadze. “Apparently he wasn’t.”
—Thomas Grove in Moscow contributed to this article.
Write to Bojan Pancevski at bojan.pancevski@wsj.com, Alan Cullison at alan.cullison@wsj.com and Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com
@88m3 @ADevilYouKhow @wire28 @dtownreppin214
@DonKnock @dza @wire28 @BigMoneyGrip @Dameon Farrow @re'up @Blackfyre @Cali_livin @NY's #1 Draft Pick @Skyfall
WSJ News Exclusive | U.S. Says Russia Orchestrated Chechen Rebel’s Murder in Germany
U.S. Says Russia Orchestrated Chechen Rebel’s Murder in Germany
The murder is rekindling concerns that Moscow is ramping up a foreign assassination campaign against perceived enemies abroad
The body of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian commander who had fought against Russia during a Chechen uprising, was carried at his funeral in Duisi village, the Pankisi Gorge valley, in Georgia, on Aug. 29. PHOTO: ZURAB TSERTSVADZE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
By
Bojan Pancevski in Berlin,
Alan Cullison and
Michael R. Gordon in Washington
Sept. 10, 2019 11:59 am ET
U.S. officials believe Russia was behind the murder last month of a former Chechen rebel in Germany, U.S. officials said Tuesday, latest fatality in a flurry of assassinations that has claimed the lives of the country’s perceived enemies abroad.
The victim, a 40-year-old Georgian commander who had fought against Russia during a Chechen uprising, was gunned down in a Berlin park on Aug. 23 on his way to a local mosque. Minutes later, German police arrested a Russian man attempting to leave the scene on an electric scooter after he discarded a pistol and silencer.
The murder of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili is rekindling concerns that Moscow is ramping up a foreign assassination campaign. Last year, Western governments expelled more than 100 Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning in the U.K. of a former Russian spy and his daughter, which London has blamed on the Russian military foreign-intelligence service GRU.
The assertion by American officials mark the first time that the U.S. said that Russia is linked to the killing. German officials initially said the killing might be related to organized crime.
“The United States believes that Russia is responsible for this assassination,” a U.S. official said.
Germany released this image of the suspected killer, who has not been identified. PHOTO: BERLIN STATE POLICE
German authorities haven’t commented further about the attack and the man in their custody despite swirling rumors that the killing might have been politically motivated. The Kremlin hasn’t responded to requests for comment. It has denied any involvement in Mr. Khangoshvili’s death.
U.S. officials declined to say which government officials or organizations in Russia were involved in the alleged plot to kill Mr. Khangoshvili.
The Kremlin has emphatically denied any involvement in killings overseas even though Russia formally legalized the practice in 2006. Since then several Kremlin opponents have died in attacks in the Middle East, Turkey and in Ukraine. Attacks in Europe have been rarer.
The absence of a German government reaction to Mr. Khangoshvili’s murder has sparked criticism from opposition parties that Berlin is eager to avoid a confrontation with Russia. A spokesman for the German government refused to comment, and said the investigation was ongoing.
The Berlin prosecutor’s office, which is leading the investigation, refused to comment. But in a sign of the mounting suspicions, U.S. officials and one German official familiar with the case said Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, had now joined the probe. The BND didn’t respond to a written request for comment.
One official said the suspect had recently come out of Russian prison after serving a murder sentence. Upon his release, he was given a bona fide Russian passport to the name of Vadim Sokolov, who U.S. officials believed to be a cover. Within days, he used the document to apply at France’s Moscow Embassy for a special visa that allows holders to travel freely through Europe’s Schengen document-free travel bloc.
“A fake identity with a real passport can only be provided by authorities in Russia,” one U.S. official said.
The suspect then flew to Paris and from there traveled to Warsaw, Poland, where he stayed for several days before traveling on to Berlin. He rented out a room at a Warsaw hotel and left his luggage inside when he departed for Berlin, with the intention of returning, said a senior Polish government official.
Germany released this image of the bicycle the accused killer used to try to flee. PHOTO: BERLIN STATE POLICE
In Berlin, the suspect, whose real identity remains unknown, is thought to have been briefed by accomplices about the daily routine of Mr. Khangoshvili. Around midday on Friday, Aug. 23, the suspected killer confronted the Chechen émigré in a park in central Berlin as Mr. Khangoshvili was on his way to the mosque in which he regularly worshiped.
The suspect rode to the victim using a bicycle the officials said had been placed near the scene before the shooting. He sped toward Mr. Khangoshvili and shot him twice in the head with a Glock 26 handgun fitted with a silencer in full view of passersby, people familiar with the investigation said.
The suspected assassin then hid in a bush, changed his clothes and disposed of the gun and the bicycle in the Spree River near the park where the murder took place, according to police. Witnesses called the police, who arrested the suspect as he was about to make off on an electric scooter, police said.
German police are now investigating who procured the bicycle and the scooter. The suspect was intending to travel back to Poland after the killing, according to the official familiar with the probe.
Police are likely to run into uncertainties in determining who, precisely, the gunman was working for inside Russia. Western officials say that Russian assassinations outside its borders have traditionally been directed either by the federal government in Moscow, or by Chechnya’s pro-Kremlin leader, Ramzon Kadyrov, who commands a security apparatus of ethnic Chechens.
But two people familiar with the investigation say there is another possibility—namely, that the murder was ordered by Chechen authorities, not Moscow, but still executed with the help of Russian operatives who fitted the assassin with a fake identity and new passport.
Friends of Mr. Khangoshvili said he had for years dodged attempted assassinations and that his death in Berlin capped a career of fighting Moscow, first as a field commander and eventually as a hunted refugee.
A confidante of Chechnya’s former president, Aslan Maskhadov, he distinguished himself as a midlevel commander in the breakaway region’s second war against Russia in the early 2000s. One acquaintance said he likely aroused the hatred of Russia’s security services for his role in a raid on the Russian city of Nazran in 2004 in which dozens of security service officers died.
After rebel resistance was crushed inside Russia, Mr. Khangoshvili fled with others to the neighboring state of Georgia, where for several years he was employed informally by the Georgian government, specializing in counterintelligence against the Russians. There, he narrowly escaped a kidnap attempt and an ambush in which his car was riddled with bullets.
He left Georgia in 2015, hoping to find work in Ukraine, which was fighting its own war against Russia, but in Kiev he failed to find a job with the Ukraine’s premier security service, the SBU. Amid a spate of assassinations, he feared for his safety and left with his wife for Germany.
In Germany, Mr. Khangoshvili applied for refugee status, but was refused repeated requests for special protection from the German government, said Givi Targamadze, a former official in the Georgian government who kept in touch with him until recently. At the time of his death, Mr. Khangoshvili was still trying to obtain state-appointed bodyguards through the German court system, said Mr. Targamadze.
“He felt that even though he wasn’t able to get the protection he asked for, he felt relatively safe in Germany,” said Mr. Targamadze. “Apparently he wasn’t.”
—Thomas Grove in Moscow contributed to this article.
Write to Bojan Pancevski at bojan.pancevski@wsj.com, Alan Cullison at alan.cullison@wsj.com and Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com
@88m3 @ADevilYouKhow @wire28 @dtownreppin214
@DonKnock @dza @wire28 @BigMoneyGrip @Dameon Farrow @re'up @Blackfyre @Cali_livin @NY's #1 Draft Pick @Skyfall