DUBAI: The Dubai police chief has suggested that an international investigation team be involved in viewing the evidence pointing to the involvement of Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Adam Delimkhanov in planning the murder of former commander of the disbanded Chechen ‘Vostok’ battalion, Sulim Yamadayev.
Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim was responding to a statement by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who dismissed the accusations. Kadyrov on Monday rejected the accusations by Dubai police, saying they were “not based on any objective facts.”
“It is a clear provocation which is aimed at discrediting Russia and the Chechen leadership,” he said in a statement.
However, Lt. Gen. Dhahi yesterday said: “We at Dubai police have irrefutable evidence against all the suspects involved in this crime, otherwise we would not release the details of the case and name the suspects.”
Sulim Yamadayev, a foe of Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, was shot on March 28 in the car park of a luxury seaside apartment block in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Dubai police named Delimkhanov, Kadyrov’s close adviser, as the person who masterminded the murder. Delimkhanov has denied any involvement.
Kadyrov, 32, has served the Kremlin by calming the mostly Muslim province, which has fought two separatist wars against Moscow since 1991.
But human rights activists have warned that Kadyrov has constructed an authoritarian system in Chechnya and that the Kremlin may one day find it hard to control him. Kadyrov’s spokesman has dismissed any suggestion that the killing of Yamadayev, once one of Chechnya’s most powerful men, was linked to the Chechen president. Yamadayev, a former rebel who switched sides and backed the Kremlin, had challenged Kadyrov for control of local security forces until last year, when he was dismissed from command of an elite battalion and forced to flee.
— With input from agencies
