Austria: Chechen dissident murdered, two men arrested

Mamikhan Oumarov was an opponent of Ramzan Kadyrov, pictured here during a ceremony at the Kremlin, May 7, 2018. Sergei SAVOSTYANOV / SPUTNIK / AFP

Text by: Anastasia Becchio Follow

2 min

Two Russian men of Chechen origin were arrested by Austrian police after the body of a Chechen dissident was discovered in Vienna. Mamikhan Oumarov, 43, was shot in the head. He was found on Saturday June 4, in a car park on the outskirts of the Austrian capital.

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"  Andzor of Vienna  ": it was under this pseudonym that Mamikhan Oumarov had made a name for himself as a blogger who violently attacked Ramzan Kadyrov and his entourage. Novaya Gazeta even describes him as the personal enemy of the Chechen President.

He had obtained asylum in 2007 and for several years had been very critical of the Chechen regime. He had notably given information to the Ukrainian secret services on the sponsored murders of opponents to Ramzan Kadyrov , according to this Russian newspaper.

He himself claimed to have collaborated with the Chechen services for a while, helping to carry out a number of secret operations in Europe, before defecting. According to the Austrian media, he also collaborated with the Austrian services after the murder of a Chechen refugee in 2009 in Vienna.

Too early to determine the reason

The alleged killer of Mamikhan Oumarov was caught by the police in Linz, a second man was arrested a few hours later. The Russian-speaking site Kavkaz.reali quotes the names of the two suspects: two Chechens aged 47 and 37 who had the status of political refugees in Austria since 2002 and 2004.

Police and justice officials say the investigation is continuing and it is too early to decide the reason for the murder. The operating mode in any case recalls numerous assassinations of Chechen opponents in exile on European territory. Last February, Imran Aliev, a Chechen blogger, a political refugee in Belgium, was found brutally murdered in a hotel room in Lille, in the north of France.

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  • Austria
  • Chechnya
  • Ramzan Kadyrov

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