7 April 2009

DUBAI: Dubai police have arrested two foreigners who are suspected to have taken part in the assassination on March 28 of the former Russian army commander from Chechnya, Sulim Yamadayev. The police also accused Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Adam Delimkhanov of masterminding the operation in Dubai.

Yamadayev was shot outside the parking lot of his apartment in the posh Jumeirah Beach area.

At a press conference yesterday, Dubai police chief Lt-Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, said two men, Mahdi Lournia from Iran and Tajik national Makhsud-Jan, were being held for questioning over the killing.

He said other than Delimkhanov, two Russians and a Kazakh were also on the wanted list. They left Dubai soon after Yamadayev’s murder, Tamim said. “Russia must move and take a firm position to rein in these killers,” he said.

Tamim said Lournia was a main suspect but stressed that Iran and the Iranian intelligence service were not involved in the affair, and that no other authorities had assisted Dubai police.

He said after finishing the investigation the police would seek the Interpol help to arrest Delimkhanov.

Tamim denied Chechen media reports that claimed that Arab Salafi groups were behind the killing of Yamadayev. “This murder was a pure Chechen operation during which they were settling scores in Dubai,” he said. Tamim said one of the suspects said that Delimkhanov’s guard gave him the murder weapon — a gold-plated Russian Marakov.

The killer had thrown away the weapon after the murder. The police also found the gloves and jacket used in the operation.

Yamadayev was the leader of a powerful Chechen clan that had been in a 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 he was officially in command of the biggest pro-Moscow militias outside the control of Kadyrov.

In a first reaction Delimkhanov rejected the allegations.

“The statements by the Dubai police chief are provocative and aimed at destabilizing Chechen society,” Ria Novosti news agency quoted him as saying.

The Chechen representative in the Russian upper house of Parliament, Ziad Spassibi, said the police statements were “only aimed at covering up the total failure of Dubai police in the investigation.” “These statements are aimed at aggravating the situation in Chechnya and in southern Russia,” ITAR-TASS news agency quoted him as saying.

A source at the public prosecutor’s office in Moscow meanwhile said that whatever the outcome of the investigation Russia would not extradite any Russian nationals should there be any such request.

Yamadayev had been presented with the country’s top “Hero of Russia” award for his military exploits.

Last April, Yamadayev’s forces and Kadyrov engaged in one of the fiercest battles between rival Chechen factions. In this conflict, Kadyrov prevailed and eventually Yamadayev was sacked 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 attempts on Yamadayev’s life.

“Exporting the conflicts of warring gangs in Chechnya to us is not acceptable... We will strike with an iron fist anyone who dares to violate our country’s security,” Tamim said.