Dubai police on Sunday accused Chechen former vice prime minister Adam Delimkhanov of ordering the assassination in the Gulf city state 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.
Tamim said Delimkhanov was "wanted in the (United Arab) Emirates, and we will demand his arrest by Interpol, adding that the weapon used in the assassination belonged to his guards.
Delimkhanov, who is now a member of the Russian parliament, rejected the allegations.
"The statements by the Dubai police chief are provocative and aimed at destabilising Chechen society," Ria Novosti news agency quoted him as saying.
Yamadayev, a bitter foe of Chechen leader Ramzam Kadyrov, was shot and killed on March 28 in a parking lot outside his apartment in Dubai's Jumeirah Beach Residence complex.
"The crime is of Chechen making... It is a dirty settling of accounts... a cheap operation," Tamim said.
The Chechen representative in the Russian upper house of parliament, Ziad Spassibi, said the police statements were "only aimed at covering up the total failure of Dubai police in the investigation."
"These statements are aimed at aggravating the situation in Chechnya and in southern Russia," ITAR-TASS news agency quoted him as saying.
"The killers should be hunted down where they are without pointing a finger at politicians."
A source at the public prosecutor's office in Moscow said that whatever the outcome of the investigation Russia would not extradite any Russian nationals should there be any such request.
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 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, Spassibi said Yamadayev had indeed been killed.
"Unfortunately, he is dead and has been buried in Dubai," said Spassibi.
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 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
