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Lavrov says Russia awaits info from UAE on Yamadayev shooting
10.04.2009
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MOSCOW, April 10 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's foreign minister said on
Friday that the country is still waiting for information from the
United Arab Emirates on the March 28 shooting of a Russian army
commander.
Dubai police say Sulim Yamadayev, who led a battalion in Chechnya, was
shot dead in a car park near his luxury apartment, and have accused a
senior Chechen politician of organizing the killing. However,
Yamadayev's brother Isa insists that Sulim survived the assassination
attempt, and is still alive.
Speaking to reporters on a flight from Turkmenistan to Moscow, Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia is waiting to receive "any kind of
official report" on the murder from the United Arab Emirates.
"We are counting on our partners in the Emirates do this quickly... The
official channel for such cases is the embassy. However, nothing had
been received as of the day I left Moscow [Thursday]."
Lavrov had been in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, for a ministerial
meeting of the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States members.
Almost two weeks on from the killing, doubt remains as to Yamadayev's
fate. Isa and family members say he is in intensive care, and the
Russian embassy in Dubai says it has not received documented
confirmation of Yamadayev's death.
Dubai police said earlier this week they have conclusive evidence that
Yamadayev was assassinated by Adam Delimkhanov, a Chechen member of
Russia's parliament closely associated with Chechen President Ramzan
Kadyrov.
Kadyrov has furiously denied Delimkhanov's involvement in the
assassination, saying on Monday that: "Adam Delimkhanov is my close
associate, a friend, a brother and my right hand man." He pledged to
"hold responsible those who make slanderous insinuations."
The shooting follows a string of assassinations of prominent critics of
the Chechen leadership. In September last year Yamadayev's brother
Ruslan was shot dead in his car in central Moscow, and in January a
former bodyguard of Kadyrov, Umar Israilov, was killed on a street in
Vienna.
Sulim Yamadayev served as the commander of Russia's Vostok battalion in
Chechnya, but fled the republic last year after a clash between his
troops and Kadyrov's guards.
The incident has focused international attention on Chechnya, and
prompted analysts to suggest that the Russian government is failing to
keep Kadyrov under control, as the republic becomes increasingly
authoritarian.
Chechnya was devastated by two military campaigns, in 1994-1996 and
1999-2001, after which Moscow significantly scaled down its military
presence in the republic.