In 2019, Vadim K. murdered a Georgian in Berlin’s Kleiner Tiergarten park. The Berlin Regional Court sentenced him to life imprisonment in 2021. Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly defended the murderer because, from Russia’s point of view, he had eliminated an enemy of the state. Russian authorities had classified him as a Chechen terrorist. There had been repeated speculation that Putin wanted to free K. in the course of a prisoner exchange.
According to dpa information, Wadim K., who had been transferred from one prison to another several times for security reasons, was most recently incarcerated in Offenburg in Baden-Württemberg. The decision to release him was not made by the Attorney General Jens Rommel, who is responsible for such cases, but by the Federal Ministry of Justice. When asked, a spokeswoman said that the Attorney General is generally responsible for suspending the execution of sentences. In the case of Wadim K., however, the ministry had instructed him in writing last Monday to suspend the execution in order to enable the prisoner exchange.
