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Russian diplomat found dead outside embassy in Berlin

A Russian diplomat was found dead in October outside the country's embassy in Berlin, it emerged Friday.

Published: 5 November 2021 14:57 CET

Russian Embassy in Berlin

Pedestrians pass the Russian Embassy in Berlin, Germany. A Russian secret service agent and diplomat was found dead in front of the embassy in October. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Bernd von Jutrczenka

The man, whose lifeless body was recovered on October 19th on the pavement by police, had apparently fallen to his death from the embassy complex, according to the Spiegel weekly which first reported on the case.

A German foreign ministry spokesman said the case was “known to the ministry” but would not provide further details.

Spiegel quoted the Russian embassy calling the death a “tragic accident”, and that it would not comment on the case “for ethical reasons”.

The diplomat was identified as a 35-year-old second secretary at the embassy by Spiegel.

But the magazine said German authorities believe he was also an agent of the Russian secret service FSB.

He is also reportedly related to a high-ranking official of the FSB’s second directorate – a unit that Western secret services say was involved in the killing of a Georgian national in central Berlin in 2019.

Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, the 40-year-old Georgian, was shot twice in the head at close range in Kleiner Tiergarten park on August 23th, 2019, allegedly by a Russian man who was arrested shortly afterwards.

The Russian suspect, 55-year-old Vadim Krasikov, alias Vadim Sokolov, is on trial over the murder, which German prosecutors say was ordered by Moscow.

READ ALSO: German man convicted of spying on parliament for Russians

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German prosecutors drop investigation into 'unforeseeable' flood disaster

The public prosecutor’s office in Koblenz has closed the investigation into the deadly flood disaster in the Ahr valley that occurred in the summer of 2021.

A sufficient suspicion against the former Ahr district administrator Jürgen Pföhler (CDU) and an employee from the crisis team has not arisen, announced the head of the public prosecutor’s office in Koblenz, Mario Mannweiler, on Thursday.

Following the flood disaster in the Ahr region in Rhineland-Palatinate – in which 136 people died in Germany and thousands of homes were destroyed – there were accusations that the district of Ahrweiler, with Pföhler at the helm, had acted too late in sending flood warnings.

An investigation on suspicion of negligent homicide in 135 cases began in August of 2021. Pföhler had always denied the allegations.

READ ALSO: UPDATE – German prosecutors consider manslaughter probe into deadly floods

The public prosecutor’s office came to the conclusion that it was an extraordinary natural disaster: “The 2021 flood far exceeded anything people had experienced before and was subjectively unimaginable for residents, those affected, emergency services and those responsible for operations alike,” the authority said.

Civil protections in the district of Ahrweiler, including its disaster warning system, were found to be insufficient.

READ ALSO: Germany knew its disaster warning system wasn’t good enough – why wasn’t it improved?

But from the point of view of the public prosecutor’s office, these “quite considerable deficiencies”, which were identified by an expert, did not constitute criminal liability.

Why did the case take so long?

The investigations had dragged on partly because they were marked by considerable challenges, said the head of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Criminal Police Office, Mario Germano. “Namely, to conduct investigations in an area marked by the natural disaster and partially destroyed. Some of the people we had to interrogate were severely traumatised.”

More than 300 witnesses were heard including firefighters, city workers and those affected by the flood. More than 20 terabytes of digital data had been secured and evaluated, and more than 300 gigabytes were deemed relevant to the proceedings.

Pföhler, who stopped working as the district administrator in August 2021 due to illness, stepped down from the role in October 2021 citing an incapacity for duty.

The conclusion of the investigation had been postponed several times, in part because the public prosecutor’s office wanted to wait for the outcome of the investigative committee in the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament.

READ ALSO: Volunteer army rebuilds Germany’s flood-stricken towns

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