BERLIN - Relatives of the man murdered by a Russian hitman in a Berlin park have voiced disappointment at the killer's release, reflecting unease in Germany at the moral equation that secured freedom for 16 political prisoners in Russian and Belarusian jails.

Georgian citizen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, an ethnic Chechen who had taken up arms against the Russian state in the early 1990s but since forsworn the armed Chechen independence struggle, was shot in 2019.

His killer Vadim Krasikov was one of seven Russian agents freed from Western jails on Thursday to secure the release of political prisoners in Russia including US journalist Evan Gershkovich and opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza.

"On one hand we are glad that lives have been saved," Khangoshvili's relatives said in a statement released by their lawyer. "But we are very disappointed that there are apparently no laws even in countries that put the rule of law on a pedestal."

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the decision had been difficult but necessary to save lives, a view echoed by his justice minister Marco Buschman.

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