German media have reported that several family members of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian citizen of Chechen descent who was assassinated in Berlin in 2019 by a Russian hitman, were deported from Germany to Tbilisi.
Deutsche Welle‘s report said that Khangoshvili’s brother, Zurab, and his family were among 48 persons deported from Berlin on a charter flight to Tbilisi. According to DW, which cited Khangoshvili’s relatives, early on October 23, police in the town of Wünsdorf, Brandenburg, “broke down the door to the apartment where Zurab Khangoshvili lived […] confiscated the family members’ cell phones, put them on buses, and took them to Berlin Airport.”
The outlet further said the brother of the assassinated Khangoshvili “moved to Germany from Sweden about three years ago and feared for his safety.” Another German agency, Tagesschau, reported on October 25 that Zurab Khangoshvili, like his brother, was not granted asylum, and that a court in Potsdam had also rejected urgent applications against deportation “without further justification.”
Khangoshvili, also known as Tornike Kavtarashvili, was gunned down in broad daylight in Berlin’s Kleiner Tiergarten Park on August 23, 2019. In 2021, a German court found Russian citizen Vadim Krasikov guilty of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment, and said that the killing had been ordered by the Russian government. Krasikov was later included in a high-profile 2024 prisoner swap between the United States, Germany, and Russia, which secured the release of several Russian opposition figures and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, among others.
Hailing from Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, Khangoshvili participated in the Second Chechen War, as well as in the 2008 August Russo-Georgian War, fighting against the Russian forces. He survived an assassination attempt in Tbilisi in 2015 and fled to Germany afterward.
According to Tagesschau, the deported family members “fear for their safety” in Georgia, noting that Zurab Khangoshvili “was also involved in the fight against Russia, and uninvolved family members are also being persecuted in revenge.” The outlet cited, among others, “mounting reports of cooperation between persons associated with Russian secret services and the Georgian leadership, which is currently cracking down hard on demonstrators and critics.”
In a separate report, Tagesschau noted that those deported to Georgia constituted the second-largest group of deportees from Germany during the first nine months of 2025, amid a rise in overall deportations. According to the outlet, of the 17,651 people deported between January and September, the highest number – 1,614 – were sent to Turkey, followed by 1,379 to Georgia.
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