31 March 2009

DUBAI: A former Russian Army commander who became a bitter foe of Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov was shot dead in the emirate of Dubai in an apparent assassination, police said yesterday.

Dubai police said a man from Chechnya was shot dead on Saturday in a parking lot. “The murder of the Chechen seems to be an assassination because he was shot dead in the parking of the building where he was living,” Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, head of Dubai police, said in a statement. He identified the victim as Sulaiman Madov, 36.

However, Russian media said this was an assumed name for Sulim Yamadayev, a decorated soldier who had commanded a Russian battalion before falling out with Kadyrov.

Russian Consul in Dubai Sergei Krasnogor said the dead man was Sulim Yamadayev. “I just received confirmation from the Dubai police that he was killed,” Krasnogor said. “The murdered man lived in Dubai under the name of Sulaiman Madov and official identification of the body has not taken place,” he added.

The Kommersant newspaper quoted a Chechen source in Dubai as saying Yamadayev was shot in the early hours of the morning outside the posh Jumeirah Beach Residence hotel complex. The killer had shot him point blank several times before fleeing the scene.

Dubai police refused to comment on rumors that they had arrested a Russian man in connection with the murder. The Rimal Apartments, where the victim lived, last year witnessed the brutal murder of Lebanese singer Suzan Tamim.

Yamadayev was the leader of a powerful Chechen clan that had been in rivalry with Chechnya’s pro-Russian president. He was de facto commander of Vostok, an elite Russian military battalion established to fight separatists in Chechnya, and until 2008, was officially in command of the biggest pro-Moscow militia outside the control of Kadyrov.

Yamadayev had been awarded with the Hero of Russia, the country’s top award, for his military exploits.

Last April, Yamadayev’s forces and Kadyrov engaged in one of the biggest battles between rival Chechen factions. In this conflict, Kadyrov prevailed and eventually Yamadayev was sacked from his post and declared a wanted “criminal” in Chechnya.

Yamadayev fled to Dubai after his brother Ruslan was gunned down in a Moscow street on Sept. 24 last year. Sulim Yamadayev at the time accused Kadyrov of being behind the killing and vowed to avenge the murder.

According to dissident Chechen websites, outspoken enemies of the Chechen president were put on a hit list and two were killed in Vienna and Istanbul last year. Saturday’s killing is the latest in a string of attacks on Yamadayev’s life.