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GERMANY AND RUSSIA

‘Bitter concession’: Germany admits tough wrangling over freed hitman Krasikov

German prosecutors had argued against releasing Vadim Krasikov, the Russian hitman at the centre of a historic East-West prisoner swap, a Justice Ministry spokeswoman told AFP on Friday.

Published: 2 August 2024 14:46 CEST

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz after tough negotiations resulted in prisoner releases. Photo by Christoph Reichwein / POOL / AFP)

Krasikov, who was freed along with seven other Russian citizens on Thursday, had been serving a life sentence in Germany for assassinating a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park.

In the run-up to the swap deal, the German Justice Ministry had sought an official opinion from the public prosecutor’s office on whether Krasikov should be freed, the spokeswoman said.

The institution put forward arguments “in favour of continued enforcement” of Krasikov’s sentence.

However, the ministry ultimately decided “the arguments against continued enforcement of the sentence” were more compelling.

“This is because further enforcement would have caused a risk of serious harm to Germany and its foreign and security policy interests,” the spokeswoman said.

There were also “overriding public and humanitarian interests” including “protecting the lives, health and freedom” of German nationals and dissidents in prison in Russia, she said.

Justice Minister Marco Buschmann on Thursday said the decision to free Krasikov had been “a particularly bitter concession”.

“In order to give 16 people a new life in freedom, we have deported a convicted murderer to Russia,” he said in a statement.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz acknowledged the decision to release Krasikov had been “difficult”.

But speaking after welcoming the prisoners at Cologne airport, Scholz insisted the swap was “the right decision, and if you had any doubts, you will lose them after talking to those who are now free”.

Krasikov, alias Vadim Sokolov, was found guilty of gunning down former Chechen separatist commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in broad daylight in a Berlin park in 2019.

He was convicted in December 2021, with Berlin judges concluding the killing had been ordered by Moscow.

In this pool photograph distributed by Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin welcomes Vadim Krasikov as Russian citizens released in a major prisoners swap with the West arrive at Moscow's Vnukovo airport on August 1st, 2024.

In this pool photograph distributed by Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin welcomes Vadim Krasikov as Russian citizens released in a major prisoners swap with the West arrive at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport on August 1st, 2024. Photo by Mikhail VOSKRESENSKIY / POOL / AFP

The Kremlin at the time slammed what it called a “political” ruling, but Moscow on Friday confirmed that Krasikov was an operative with Russia’s FSB security service.

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Hundreds from Germany’s Russian community cheered him on at a rally held on a balmy summer’s evening at a park where the Berlin Wall once stood, as police kept a close watch on the event.

Yashin, 41, who had been jailed after criticising Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, called for the release of other “steadfast” political prisoners and exhorted the crowd to keep up the fight against President Vladimir Putin, whom he branded a “war criminal”.

Many well-wishers chanted Yashin’s name while others waved an anti-war version of the Russian flag with the red stripe removed.

One of those in the crowd was Natasha Ivanova, of the Demokrati-JA group of Russian dissidents in Germany, who said the exchange in August was the “first piece of good news we have had in many years”.

“It was unbelievable, we weren’t used to that anymore,” said 50-year-old Ivanova, looking back at years when news from the homeland was mostly of “destruction, arrests, torture”.

Perhaps the biggest blow was the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was originally meant to be part of the exchange but died in an Arctic prison in February.

Activists in Berlin say they know that Moscow has also targeted its opponents abroad — including in the very heart of the German capital.

One of the those traded in the multi-country exchange was Russian operative Vadim Krasikov, who had been jailed in Germany for the 2019 murder of a former Chechen separatist in Berlin’s central Tiergarten park.

‘Agents and contract killers’

Yashin told German media this week that he was aware that Russian “agents and contract killers can be everywhere” and recounted recently being filmed by a suspicious man in a Berlin cafe.

Nevertheless, he declined the offer of police protection, he told Germany’s Funke Media group, reasoning that “I didn’t even have bodyguards in Moscow, so why should I have any here?”

In the days after the rally, Ivanova also met two of the other freed detainees, veteran human rights advocate Oleg Orlov and activist Andrei Pivovarov.

Russian journalist and activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, Russian activist Andrei Pivovarov and Russian opposition figure Ilya Yashin address a press conference on August 2, 2024 in Bonn, western Germany, one day after they were released from Russia as political prisoners in one of the biggest prisoner swaps between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War. Photo by INA FASSBENDER / AFP

“It was very moving to be able to have such a direct meeting with those who had just been saved,” she said.

Following Navalny’s death, there have been signs that the presence of the freed prisoners in Germany may give fresh energy to the work of the exile community.

Germany hosts by far the EU’s biggest community of Russian nationals – more than 250,000. Russian dissident activity has been centred in Baltic states, but Berlin has also become a hub for many.

German media reported early this year that almost 2,000 Russian activists have been granted asylum in Germany since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Ivanova said she and others were ready to help the new arrivals “in any way they can”, pointing out that their time behind bars had given them a special “authority”.

“They must avoid arguing amongst themselves as can happen sometimes, unfortunately,” she added.

‘Way back to freedom’

Orlov, 71, a co-founder of the Memorial rights group, said he was busy dealing with his German paperwork but planned to “work together with elements of civil society in exile… here in Germany”.

He was speaking as the guest of honour at the opening of an exhibition in the eastern city of Weimar focusing on Memorial, which Russian authorities disbanded in 2021 and which was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize the following year.

Like Yashin – who said the swap was a “deportation from Russia against my will” – Orlov emphasised that he wants “to return to Russia as soon as the opportunity presents itself”.

“However, if I went back now it would be with the 100 percent probability of going back to jail,” he said.

Asked whether he felt safe in Germany, Orlov said with a wry smile: “Honestly I don’t know why they would attack me here — anything they wanted to do with me, they could have done in Russia.”

“On the other hand, as we say in Russia: We are all on God’s earth and nobody is free from all danger.”

Orlov said that reflecting on Memorial’s work and its ban had brought up the question of whether his activism had been in vain, given the deterioration of human rights in Russia.

Nevertheless he said that he was “convinced that Russia will at some point find its way back to freedom and all that we have done in this time will help Russia”.

By Jastinder KHERA