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Chechen dissident killed in Austria in apparent contract killing

One suspect in the Chechen man's killing was detained in the city of Linz on Saturday - Matthias Lauber/APA/AFP via Getty Images
One suspect in the Chechen man's killing was detained in the city of Linz on Saturday - Matthias Lauber/APA/AFP via Getty Images

A Chechen man has been gunned down in Austria in the second apparent contract killing of Chechen government critics this year.

A 43-year-old Russian national, originally from Chechnya, was shot dead on an open road near Vienna on Saturday, and two suspects in the attack have been apprehended, Austrian police said on Sunday.

The alleged killer was arrested after a chase through the city of Linz while a second man was arrested on Sunday after he was initially called in as a witness.

Police said that the motive of the crime was “unclear” but they are treating the killing as a possible terrorist act, according to the German Press Agency.

Austrian police described the victim as an asylum seeker named Martin B. Russian media identified him as Mamikhan Umarov, who assumed the name of Martin Beck after he moved to Austria.

Chechnya in Russia’s North Caucasus went through two devastating separatist wars in the 1990s before the Kremlin struck a deal with a rebel leader who ruled the region until he was assassinated in 2004.

The rebel leader’s son, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been at the helm since then, creating a fiefdom that he rules with an iron fist.

He has faced numerous accusations of extrajudicial killings, torture and beatings that he has denied. Some of Mr Kadyrov’s opponents have died in mysterious circumstances while living in exile abroad.

The murder of Mr Umarov follows an increasing wave of killings and attacks on Chechen dissidents in Europe.

Imran Aliyev, an outspoken Chechen blogger, was stabbed to death in a hotel room in Lille, France, in January.

French police suspected a political motive behind the killing but did not name any suspects.

Mr Umarov, who has been living in exile for nearly 20 years, had a popular YouTube blog where he was critical of the Chechen government.

In an interview with a Ukrainian TV channel in February, Mr Umarov claimed that he had been approached by emissaries of Mr Kadyrov’s inner circle about organising contract killings of high-profile Chechen critics abroad, including two Chechens who fought against Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

He claimed to have been passing information to the Austrian intelligence about those plans and said he warned potential victims.

One of them was shot dead in October 2017 in Ukraine while her husband survived.

Musa Lomayev, another Chechen exile in Europe, told the TV Rain channel on Sunday that he was confident that Mr Umarov fell victim to a contract killing. “I have no doubt that this man was killed on Kadyrov’s orders because he used to tell me that Kadyrov has placed a $10 million bounty on his head," he said.

In February, Tumso Abdurakhmanov, arguably the best-known exiled Chechen critic, survived what he described as a murder attempt. He managed to capture the alleged assassin at his home in Poland.

Last August, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a former rebel fighter, was gunned down by a Russian man in central Berlin.

Germany's prosecutor general said the killing appeared to have been commissioned either by the Russian government or the government of Chechnya, which Mr Kadyrov rules with a large degree of autonomy from Moscow.

Ihor Mosiychuk, a former Ukrainian lawmaker who saw Mr Umarov in February, said in his blog on Sunday that the Chechen man was looking to get in touch with US law enforcement and testify about contact killings.

The Russian Embassy in Vienna said on Sunday that it was awaiting information from Austrian authorities.

A Chechen government spokesman was not immediately available for comment.