MOSCOW: A former Russian army commander from Chechnya shot in Dubai is still alive, his brother insisted in an interview to the Izvestia daily published yesterday.
Sulim Yamadayev, a bitter foe of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, was shot in March in a parking lot outside the Jumeirah Beach Residence luxury hotel in the emirate.
“I am even ready to make a photo of him holding your newspaper with my published interview, but UAE security services are against this,” Isa Yamadayev said, admitting that he had no e-mails or Internet logs to prove his brother’s survival.
“However, those who say he is dead have no proof either. There are no media or police reports confirming Sulim’s death, no photos of his body or the funeral — only the Dubai police statement and cemetery logs, so why should this be believed?” Yamadayev said.
Police said Sulim Yamadayev died of his wounds but numerous relatives, including his brother Issa, have insisted he was still alive and even recovering.
A former Chechen separatist, Yamadayev switched sides in the late 1990s and became the commander of Vostok, an elite battalion that fought the rebels. He was honored with Russia’s top decoration, the Hero of Russia award.
He was dismissed from the military late last year amid bitter rivalry with Chechen leader Kadyrov, and Russian police issued an arrest warrant against him over the kidnapping of a Chechen businessman in 1998.
Isa Yamadayev also said he was willing to testify in the case of the Yamadayev family declaring a blood feud on Kadyrov for the murder of another Yamadayev brother, Ruslan, who was gunned down in Moscow in November.
However, he refused to go to Chechnya, as “I will not make it there, I will disappear, get lost or something will happen, it is obvious to me — but I am willing to testify in Moscow,” Yamadayev said, adding that “I do not intend to run and hide.”
