Russian charged with planned killing of Chechen dissident

BERLIN (AP) — German prosecutors said Thursday that they have charged a Russian man with planning the killing of a Chechen dissident in Germany.

Federal prosecutors said in a statement that Valid D., whose last name wasn’t released for privacy reasons, is alleged in early 2000 to have accepted an order from a member of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s security apparatus to kill an opposition member living in exile in Germany.

Prosecutors said the designated victim and his brother are critics of Kadyrov and vocally speak out for an independent Chechnya on social media.

The actual killing was to be carried out by another man, who pretended to accept the hit job for fear of repression, prosecutors said.

The suspect is alleged to have obtained a firearm, ammunition and a silencer and traveled to Germany in the second half of 2020 to receive and assist the other man in preparing the killing, according to the statement.

Valid D. was arrested on Jan. 1, 2021, before the killing could take place. He has been detained since.

Last year, a Berlin court sentenced a Russian man to life in prison for killing a Chechen man in the German capital in 2019 at the behest of the Russian government.