Zurab Khangoshvili, a brother of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, confirms that his brother should have met the former First Lady of Georgia, Sandra Roelofs, on the day he was murdered, Sweden-residing Zurab Khangoshvili told the Georgian First Channel.

According to Zurab Khangoshvili, his brother was helping Sandra Roelofs to organize a meeting with the Chechen Diaspora in Berlin. The brother of the murdered Georgian citizen underlined the investigation interrogates everyone, who has recent contacts with late Zelimkhan Khangoshvili before the murder.

The court questions the witnesses. The interrogation of witnesses is not over yet. As far as we know, this process will continue until the end of January, unless there are other delays due to the pandemic. As for Sandra, I knew she had to meet my brother that evening. My brother booked a table at a restaurant this evening. He planned to invite Sandra, her son Eduard and her daughter-in-law. My brother was the host. As far as I know, they should have met with Chechen Diaspora there. My brother organized it and coordinated whom to meet, i.e. the representatives of the Ichkeria government, who live in Germany. I knew this. As for the interest of the court in this meeting, it is a common story that all recent contacts would be interrogated, this is how the investigation is conducted, they should be interrogated, Zurab Khangoshvili said.

According to Zurab Khangoshvili, when Sandra Roelofs learned about the murder of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, she appealed to the German Migration Service to pay serious attention.

Zurab Khangoshvili also commented on Zelimkhan Khangoshvili’s relations with Mikheil Saakashvili’s government.

My brother lived in Tbilisi during Mikheil Saakashvili’s rule. He used to be involved in difficult issues, such as the situation in the Lopota Gorge [special operation]. He participated in the negotiations to defuse the tension, but unfortunately, it ended badly. He did his best not to escalate the situation, Zurab Khangoshvili said.

According to Khangoshvili, the investigation into his brother’s murder is going in the right direction. He said it was already known that the arrested person was the direct perpetrator of the murder. According to Zurab Khangoshvili, everything goes to Russia and directly to Moscow.

The Russian Service of Deutsche Welle reported, the investigation into the murder case of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, an ethnic Chechen citizen of Georgia, killed in Berlin, demanded to question Sandra Roelofs, the wife of the former president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili. Reportedly, Sandra Roelofs was in Berlin and had planned to meet with Khangoshvili the day when he was killed. The investigation has once interrogated Roelofs via phone. No details of the telephone conversation were disclosed at the trial. Respectively, the motive of the planned meeting between Sandra Roelofs and Zelimkhan Khangoshvili remains unknown.

Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a former military commander during the Second Chechen War and military officer during the 2008 Russia-Georgia War, was killed in a Berlin park in August of 2019. The Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov is suspected of ordering the assassination of Khangoshvili. In June of 2020, the German Federal Prosecutor General brought charges against a Russian citizen and accused the government of Russia as the mastermind behind the contract killing.