DUBAI: Police yesterday confirmed that they had detained a suspect in connection with the shooting of a former Chechen commander.
Sulim Yamadayev, the leader of a powerful clan that was fighting Chechnya’s pro-Russian President Ramzan Kadyrov, was shot in an apparent assassination attempt on Saturday in his building’s parking lot in the emirate and then died of his wounds, police said.
Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, chief of Dubai police, confirmed that a Russian citizen had been detained for questioning. “Dubai police have a thread that may lead to the masterminds of the assassination,” he said.
Yamadayev was shot on the head and died instantly, Tamim said, denying reports that he had been injured and was still alive. One of Yamadayev’s bodyguards was injured. The attacker then drove off in Yamadayev’s car.
A source at Dubai police’s mortuary confirmed that the victim’s body has been handed back to his family. Yamadayev, who fled to Dubai after his brother Ruslam was gunned down in Russia, was living in the emirate under the alias Suleyman Madov.
But Russia’s Kommersant daily said Sulim’s brother, Isa, told its correspondent that Yamadayev had regained consciousness in hospital, while his wife Milena told the newspaper he was alive but in serious condition.
The same brother, who is in Dubai, also told Vremya Novostei that although wounded in the head, stomach and chest, Yamadayev was still alive.
But Russian Consul Sergei Krasnogor told the RIA Novosti news agency he had been officially informed by the police chief that Yamadayev was dead. He added that seven people had already been arrested in Dubai but this has not been confirmed.
— With input from agencies
