UAE jails two over Dubai killing of Chechen commander

Sulim Yamadayev once led an elite division of Chechnya’s security forces

A court in Dubai has jailed two men – an Iranian and a Tajik – for 25 years over their role in the assassination last year of a Chechen commander.

Sulim Yamadayev, a rival of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, was shot dead in a car park near his beach-front apartment in Dubai on 28 March 2009.

The two convicted men pleaded not guilty. They will be deported from the United Arab Emirates after their term.
Dubai police say an aide to Mr Kadyrov, Adam Delimkhanov, ordered the killing.
Last year Interpol issued arrest warrants for seven Russians in connection with the killing.
Mr Delimkhanov, a Chechen deputy prime minister and a Russian MP, rejects the allegations and has accused the police of incompetence.
It is alleged that the Iranian handed over a briefcase containing the murder weapon. The Tajik was accused of collecting intelligence for the assassination and of helping the killers flee the UAE.
Yamadayev led an elite division of Chechnya’s security forces and was once close to President Kadyrov, but fell out with him in 2008 and fled Russia.
In September 2008 Yamadayev’s brother Ruslan was shot dead in Moscow.
Mr Kadyrov has denied any involvement in the killings. Both he and Yamadayev were Chechen separatist commanders in the first Chechen war against Russia in 1994-96, but they switched sides when Russian forces poured into the breakaway republic in 1999 to retake it.
Yamadayev then became commander of the elite Vostok security forces battalion, a unit of former rebels who have helped quell separatist resistance. In 2005, he was named a Hero of Russia, the country’s top honour.

BBC