Police on Sunday accused Chechen Vice-Prime Minister Adam Delimkhanov of ordering the assassination in Dubai of the former Russian army commander from Chechnya, Sulim Yamadayev.
"Adam Delimkhanov is the man behind the assassination of Sulim Yamadayev," head of Dubai police Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim told reporters in the Gulf city state.
Tamim said Delimkhanov was "wanted in the (United Arab) Emirates, and we will demand his arrest by Interpol."
"The weapon (used in the assassination) belongs to the guards of the Chechen vice-prime minister," he added.
Yamadayev, a bitter foe of Chechen leader Ramzam Kadyrov, was shot and killed on March 28 in a parking lot outside his apartment at Dubai's Jumeirah Beach Residence complex.
"The crime is of Chechen making ... It is a dirty settling of accounts ... a cheap operation" Tamim said.
Two men, Mahdi Lournia from Iran and Tajik national Makhsud-Jan, are being held for questioning over the killing.
Tamim said Lournia was a main suspect but stressed that Iran and the Iranian intelligence service were not involved in the affair, and no other authorities had assisted Dubai police.
He said other than Delimkhanov, two Russians and a Kazakh were also on the wanted list. They left Dubai soon after Yamadayev's murder, Tamim said. "Russia must move and take a firm position to rein in these killers," he said.
Tamim did not clarify whether the suspected killer was among those arrested, but said they had a man in custody who had confessed to having said "Sulim has arrived," in an apparent reference to recorded phone conversations.
Mystery over Yamadayev's death had engulfed the emirate last week, with Dubai police issuing a statement on the Saturday of the attack that he had been killed, a report which relatives denied.
"He was buried in Dubai," Tamim said at the press conference.
On Wednesday, Russian Senator Ziad Spassibi came out and said Yamadayev had indeed been killed.
"Unfortunately, he is dead and has been buried in Dubai," said Spassibi who represents Chechnya in Russia's upper house of parliament. "He was buried on Monday in Al-Kuz cemetery in Dubai at 3 pm local time (1100 GMT)."
A former Chechen separatist, Yamadayev switched sides in the late 1990s and became the commander of Vostok, an elite battalion which fought the rebels. He was honoured 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 Ramzan Kadyrov, and Russian police issued an arrest warrant against him over the kidnapping of a Chechen businessman in 1998.
Yamadayev left Russia and moved to Dubai four months ago for fear of his life after a brother was assassinated in September 2008, according to the Russian media.
"Exporting the conflicts of warring gangs in Chechnya to us is not acceptable ... We will strike with an iron fist anyone who dares to violate our country's security," Tamim said.
Source: AFP Global Edition
