The Kremlin said on Wednesday that the murder of an ethnic Chechen exile in Berlin last week had nothing to do with the Russian state or its official agencies, Reuters has reported.

“I categorically reject any link between this incident, this murder and official Russia,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

German prosecutors are considering whether there was a political motive behind the killing on Friday of 40-year-old Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, allegedly by a Russian citizen who shot the victim twice in the head as he walked through a park.