MOSCOW — A former Chechen general and foe of Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed president, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, was shot to death over the weekend in the Persian Gulf enclave of Dubai, the victim of an apparent assassination, the police there said on Monday.
The victim, Sulim B. Yamadayev, was shot at least three times outside an elite apartment complex in Dubai, but it was unclear exactly when the attack took place, or whether he died immediately or only on Monday as some press reports have claimed.
Still, the killing bears the imprimatur of other assassinations carried out against Chechens in Russia and abroad who have run afoul of Mr. Kadyrov and his government.
In January this year, a Chechen hit man tracked down and killed Umar S. Israilov, a former bodyguard of Mr. Kadyrov, who had received asylum in Austria after accusing the Chechen president and officials in his circle of kidnapping, torture and murder.
Mr. Yamadayev’s brother, Ruslan, was shot to death in his car last September as he waited in a traffic jam in Moscow just outside the White House, the government building that houses the offices of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin.
Mr. Kadyrov’s government has denied responsibility for these deaths and others, and Alvi A. Karimov, Mr. Kadyrov’s spokesman, said on Monday that the president had no information about the killing of Mr. Yamadayev in Dubai.
But Mr. Yamadayev, a decorated general and, until last year, commander of his own heavily armed fighting force in Chechnya, was perhaps Mr. Kadyrov’s most powerful and well-known adversary, and had often clashed openly with the president.
A separatist fighter in Russia’s first Chechen war in 1990’s, Mr. Yamadayev, 36, later switched allegiances and fought with pro-Moscow-forces in the second war that began in 1999. He was later named head of the Vostok Battalion, a contingent of former separatists co-opted into the Russian army that became notorious for its daring raids on militant hideouts as well as its callous disregard for civilian casualties.
For their service, Mr. Putin awarded both Mr. Yamadayev and Mr. Kadyrov the Hero of Russia medal, the country’s highest honor.
Mr. Yamadayev ultimately emerged as something of an independent power center in Chechnya. He was backed by Moscow, but his growing authority inevitably brought him into conflict with Mr. Kadyrov, whom the Kremlin has invested with almost total authority to return stability to Chechnya after more than a decade of war and turmoil.
In April last year, an altercation on a Chechen country road between troops from Mr. Yamadayev’s Vostok Battalion and guards from Mr. Kadyrov’s motorcade ended in gunfire. According to some reports, Mr. Kadyrov personally intervened to avoid bloodshed.
Shortly after, Mr. Yamadayev was stripped of his command and charged with involvement in kidnappings and murders, though there have been persistent reports that he commanded his Vostok troops in fighting during Russia’s war with Georgia last August.
According to Russian press reports, Mr. Yamadayev, his wife and their six children left Russia in December.
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