Germany probes Russian over plot to murder Chechen dissident

BERLIN: German prosecutors said on Friday they are investigating a Russian man suspected of helping to plan the murder of a Chechen dissident living in Germany on orders of the Chechen regime.

The probe comes at a time of increasing tensions between Germany and Russia over Ukraine, the poisoning and imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were also holding talks on Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a show of support for his pro-Western government after a Russian military build-up on its eastern borders raised fears of an invasion.

German prosecutors named the suspect as Valid D., accusing him of "making a declaration of readiness to commit murder, preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state and violating the weapons act".

He was arrested in January and is in pre-trial detention. According to German media reports, the target was Mokhmad Abdurakhmanov, the brother of exiled Chechen blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov, who lives in Sweden.