German court qualifies murder of Russian soldiers by resident of Chechnya as war crime

In Germany, the Federal Administrative Court has found the actions of the Chechen who killed two Russian soldiers in an armed conflict to be a war crime.

On February 16, this German Court ruled that a murder of a military committed by a civilian even an armed conflict zone can be qualified as a war crime.

The claimant in this case was the Federal Authority for Migration and Refugees, which refused to grant political asylum to the Chechen, who had killed two Russian soldiers and kidnapped one more in an attempt to liberate his brother. This resident of Chechnya arrived in Germany in 2002 and applied for political asylum arguing that in case of his deportation to Russia he would be politically persecuted, as the DPA Agency reports.

He managed to succeed in lower instance: both the administrative court and the supreme administrative court in Magdeburg ruled his actions were beyond the definition of "war crime", as they were undertaken against soldiers, not against civilians, as the Deutsche Welle reported. However, the Federal Authority for Migration and Refugees protested against this decision, the "Gazeta.Ru" writes.

After the verdict of the Federal Administrative Court, the case was returned for repeated consideration to the supreme administrative court of Magdeburg.

See earlier reports: "Today is nine years after Novye Aldy residents were executed in Chechnya," "Picket against war in Chechnya starts in the centre of Moscow," "State Duma deputy from Chechnya surprised with the Maskhadovs' application for political shelter."