A critic of Vladimir Putin’s friend and Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov was killed near Vienna in what Austrian police suspect was a political coup, according to reports.
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty quoted dissident Chechen sources as identifying the victim as Chechen separatist Mamikhan Umarov.
Austrian authorities were only saying that the victim was a 43-year-old asylum seeker from the Russian Federation and that he was shot dead on Saturday in a parking lot in front of a shopping center in the Gerasdorf suburb of Vienna, reported RFE / RL.
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Austrian authorities said they captured a suspect, described only as a Russian citizen, a few hours later and 125 miles away in Linz after a major manhunt, according to the media outlet.
Umarov has described himself as a former mercenary who worked as a security service official in the former de facto independent Chechen state of Ichkeria, RFE / RL reported. He frequently accused Russian security forces of carrying out the killings of former Chechen separatists in European countries.
The Associated Press, which did not name the victim, reported that the suspect in the shooting was a 47-year-old Russian.
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“The circumstances of the crime are unclear,” police said, adding that the investigation is being handled by regional anti-terror authorities.
The murder follows several other attacks on Chechens abroad.
German prosecutors last month charged a Russian man in the blatant daylight murder in Berlin of a Chechen ethnic group from Georgia. The victim had fought against Russian troops in Chechnya and fled to Germany in 2016. Prosecutors said Russian authorities had charged the suspect for the murder.
In February Imran Aliyev, who also had a YouTube channel criticizing Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, was found stabbed to death in a hotel in Lille, France. That same month, another Chechen dissident, Tumru Abdurakhmanov, was attacked in Sweden.
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Putin, the Russian president, denied allegations of the Kremlin’s involvement in the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter, Yulia, 33, in the UK two years ago.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
