BERLIN (Reuters) – German prosecutors said on Thursday they have indicted a Russian man accused of organising the killing of a Chechen dissident living in Germany on behalf of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.
Valid D., a member of the Chechen security apparatus, had procured a gun, ammunition and silencer and scouted the residence of the Kadyrov critic, where he was living with his brother, also a critic, in summer 2020, prosecutors said.
Valid D., whose full name is withheld from publication under German privacy law, denies the prosecutors’ allegations, his defence attorney was cited by Der Spiegel magazine as saying.
Valid travelled between Germany and Chechnya to accompany an alleged assassin, who was also part of the Chechen security aparatus, prosecutors said in a statement.
After arriving in Germany, the two had practiced shooting with the intended weapon and scouted the dissident’s residence in December 2020 before Valid was arrested on Jan. 1, 2021, preventing the attack from being carried out.
He is indicted on charges of agreeing to commit murder, preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state and violating weapons law, according to prosecutors.
The intended victim and his brother advocate on social media for an independent Chechnya, said prosecutors, who added that the victim’s killing was also meant to silence his brother.
The prosecutors’ statement offered no information about the pending trial.
(Reporting by Miranda Murray; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
