A date has been set for the trial of a Russian citizen suspected in killing of a Georgian national and former Chechen rebel commander in Berlin in last year.
Berlin's regional court said on September 2 that it will start the trial on October 7 against 55-year-old Vadim Krasikov, who is charged with killing Zelimkhan Khangoshvili.
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Khangoshvili was shot twice in the head in Berlin's Kleiner Tiergarten park on August 23, 2019.
Khangoshvili had previously fought alongside separatists in Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya and later resided in Georgia. Years later, he moved to Germany with his family, where he had been seeking asylum.
German prosecutors have accused Russia of ordering the killing, which Kremlin has denied.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will mark his 68th birthday on the day when Krasikov's trial starts, has publicly called Khangoshvili "a militant, involved in killings of dozens of people during the military conflict in Chechnya."
The investigative website Bellingcat has said that Krasikov was a contract killer who grew up in Kazakhstan.