Austrian investigators have concluded that the Chechen president ordered the kidnapping of one of his critics and former bodyguards in Vienna and that the man was shot to death there when the abduction went awry, an official said on Tuesday.
Umar Israilov, 27, was gunned down on Jan. 13 last year as he was leaving a grocery store in Vienna. Human rights activists have long alleged the killing was linked to his opposition to the pro-Kremlin Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.
Three Chechen men are being detained in Austria as suspects in the case, Otto Kaltenbrunner, Muslim Dadayev and an unidentified suspect, but none has been formally charged.
Gerhard Jarosch, spokesman for the Vienna public prosecutor’s office, said on Tuesday that the counterterrorism authorities who conducted the 15-month investigation “assume that Kadyrov is behind the murder of Israilov” and that he ordered his kidnapping.
The completed confidential report has been given to the Vienna public prosecutor’s office, which will decide whether to file formal charges in the case.
It was not immediately possible to get Kadyrov’s reaction to the investigation because telephone calls to his spokesman in Chechnya went unanswered after business hours on Tuesday.
Jarosch said the Austrian investigators based their conclusions on circumstantial evidence including a photograph of Kadyrov and Kaltenbrunner that was found on Kaltenbrunner’s cell phone.
DOUBTFUL CHARGE?
Jarosch appeared doubtful when asked about the likelihood of a charge against Kadyrov, saying there did not appear to be much to go on. However, he said prosecutors would now carefully consider the contents of the report to see if there was sufficient proof.
The Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Israilov had reported that he had been repeatedly tortured by Kadyrov and had served as a chief witness in court proceedings against Russia before the European Court of Human Rights.
His accounts had also formed the basis of a criminal complaint against Kadyrov on charges of torture and attempted duress filed by Austrian lawyers in June 2008.
On Monday, Jarosch confirmed that investigators had found a connection between Kaltenbrunner and Shaa Turlayev, a close adviser to the Chechen leader.
The Austrian official said an electronic airplane ticket and a copy of Turlayev’s passport were found in Kaltenbrunner’s car and that Turlayev had traveled to Vienna from Moscow two and a half months before the killing.
Kaltenbrunner was among the men who met him at the airport, Jarosch said. Another was Lecha Bogatirov, a suspect in the case who managed to flee.
Lennart Binder, the lawyer for Dadayev, who allegedly drove the getaway car after the killing, said on Monday that his client was told he would be participating in a kidnapping — not a murder — because Israilov owed the Chechen president US$300,000.
POLICE PROTECTION
Austrian authorities have been criticized for not providing Israilov police protection prior to his assassination after having been warned that his life was in danger.
The warning in the summer of 2008 came from a man who claimed he had been hired by Kadyrov to kill Israilov, but then had second thoughts and told police. The purported hit man’s allegations could not be confirmed and he was later deported to Russia.
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