Dubai Frees Retired Russian Navy Officer
By Nabi Abdullaev, Carl Schreck
The St. Petersburg Times
MOSCOW — Dubai police on Wednesday released a retired Russian naval officer detained on suspicion of involvement in the murder of Chechen strongman Sulim Yamadayev over the weekend in the emirate, the suspect’s brother said. The retired officer, Alexander Musiyaka, was detained Monday evening at his hotel in Dubai, where he was vacationing with his wife and daughter, his brother, Yevgeny Musiyaka, said by telephone from Kiev. Dubai police said this week that four Russians had been detained in connection with the murder but that none of them had been charged. Detained with Musiyaka were Maxim Dolgopolov, Alexander Mironov and a man with the nickname “Gorbaty,” or “Hunchback,” Dubai police told RIA-Novosti. But Yevgeny Musiyaka told The Moscow Times that his brother had been released and was at the Dubai airport preparing to fly home late Wednesday. He said his brother was innocent. “He has never had anything to do with Chechnya, any business with any Chechens, nothing to do with secret services and nothing to do with counterterrorist operations,” he said. Yamadayev, a former Chechen rebel who commanded the elite Vostok batallion in Chechnya, was shot in an underground parking lot of the posh seafront Jumeira Beach housing complex on Saturday. An unidentified attacker reportedly fled the scene in the BMW sedan that belonged to Yamadayev. Musiyaka’s release could not be confirmed with Dubai police. Musiyaka, a businessman based in Yalta, on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, was detained Monday evening while he was alone in his hotel room at the Hilton Dubai Jumeirah, his brother said. He had arrived in Dubai on March 23 together with his wife and daughter on a vacation package and had been planning to fly home to Yalta on Tuesday morning, his brother said. Also Wednesday, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov put an end to speculation that Yamadayev, who had challenged his authority in Chechnya, might have survived the attack. “Sulim Yamadayev was buried two days ago by his brother Isa,” Kadyrov told RIA-Novosti. “Isa confirms it.” Dubai police chief Dalfan Tamim has said Yamadayev died on the spot, while numerous media reports in recent days have cited the victim’s wife, Milana, and brother, Isa Yamadayev, as saying he was alive and being treated in a Dubai hospital. Tamim said in a statement Tuesday that he expects Russian security agencies to cooperate in solving the murder. “A thread in the possession of Dubai police could lead to the unveiling of the identity” of those behind the murder, he said. Kadyrov told journalists Wednesday that Yamadayev might have fallen victim to a blood feud or of a criminal turf war.
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