The widow of the former Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, who was shot dead in Berlin in late August 2019, told RFE/RL that she and her family had not been informed about the plan to take her husband's killer out of a German prison and send him back to Russia as part of a multinational prisoner swap.
Vadim Krasikov, who was sentenced to life in prison after a court found him guilty of murdering Khangoshvili in the Tiergarten park in the German capital, was the major piece for Russia in the largest prisoner swap between Moscow and the West since the Cold War that was conducted on August 1.
"I found out after he'd been returned. I felt complete surprise and outrage. It was like a lump in my throat at that moment," Khangoshvili's widow Manana (aka Raisa) Tsiatiyeva told RFE/RL.
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'Surprise And Outrage': Widow Condemns Return Of Killer To Russia
"Nobody asked our opinion about the swap. The fact that it took place shows that the opinion of the victim's side is not important for the German authorities," Tsiatiyeva said. "[Krasikov was presented as] a person who deserves the honor of being met by the president himself, who committed such heroism in a foreign country. What can I say? Who cares what we, the little people, think?"
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said late on August 1 at the Cologne-Bonn airport, where a plane carrying some of the prisoners released from Russian custody landed, that the decision to exchange prisoners was "not easy."
Germany's Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann he was "responsible for a particularly bitter concession" made to release U.S., German, and Russian citizens involved in the swap, adding that the principle of "freedom in case of doubt" was decisive.
SEE ALSO: Who Are The 24 Prisoners Who Were Swapped In U.S.-Russia Deal?Krasikov, who was identified by Germany's federal prosecutors as a "commander of a special unit of the Russian secret service FSB" was arrested minutes after he shot Khangoshvili in Berlin on August 23, 2019.
In December 2021, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
The second criminal division of the Higher Regional Court in Berlin noted the gravity of the attack by Krasikov, stressing he had acted on the orders of Russian authorities, who gave him a false identity, passport, and the resources to carry out the assassination.
German prosecutors during the trial said evidence showed the murder was also aimed at intimidating other Chechen asylum seekers by making them believe they are not safe from the far-reaching tentacles of Russia's security apparatus.
The 40-year-old Khangoshvili, a Georgian citizen, fought Russian troops in Chechnya.
He survived several assassination attempts and continued to receive threats after fleeing Georgia in 2016 to Germany, where he was granted asylum.
Three U.S. citizens -- Alsu Kurmasheva of RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service, reporter Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal, and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan -- were among 16 people released from Russia and Belarus on August 1. Others included five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners in their own country.