If the special services of a country carry out a killing on another country’s territory, this is regarded as a breech of that country’s sovereignty.

Any person, even if suspected of carrying out acts of terrorism, has the right to a fair and impartial trial. While the court does not deem him to be a terrorist, he is not guilty. While the regions of Russia do not have trial by jury, the death penalty can not be applied.

Why did the Russian president make such an announcement? The country’s authorities have been unable to obtain the extradition of those it dislikes who have gone abroad, as the courts in the “civilised world” are unable to accept “confessions” obtained through torture and pressuring witnesses. One can never exclude the possibility that one or the other of these emigrants will be liquidated, while in Russia itself the victim would simply be labelled a terrorist. The Kremlin probably hopes the officers who carry out the liquidation will either not be caught, or that if caught they would be returned to supposedly serve their sentence in a Russian prison. Precisely this happened after the liquidation of the former Chechen president Zelimkhan Yandarbiev in Qatar.

However, Europe is another matter altogether. Such a trick would hardly work there. Quite possibly, the Russian president wished to intimidate those in the West he would like to have extradited. But his declaration was intended more for the domestic audience, wishing to remind the population that those who offend us will not survive there forever. But Putin chooses to ignore a fact which is extremely uncomfortable for him. The more the war in Chechnya claims victims and spreads across the North Caucasus, the more Russia itself will become the target of Islamic terrorists.

To conclude, it would be pertinent to recall one other case involving diplomats. In 1979, US diplomats in Teheran were taken hostage by so-called revolutionary students, and spent many months in captivity. One of the diplomats was killed by the students. Relating this story, the newspaper Pravda informed its readers that the American had somehow behaved improperly and the students had been compelled to kill him. Russia, declaring itself the successor state to the USSR, has as far as I know never apologised to the USA for the article. Yet now, Russia chooses to hold the Americans responsible for the murder of the diplomats in Iraq.