DUBAI (AFP) – A Chechen man identified as an opponent of pro-Russian President Ramzan Kadyrov has been shot dead in the emirate of Dubai in what police said appeared to be an assassination.

Dubai police named the man as Sulaiman Madov and said he had been shot dead in a parking lot on Saturday.

“The murder of the Chechen seems to be an assassination because he was shot dead in the parking of the building where he was living,” Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, head of Dubai police, said in a statement.

“It seems the 36-year-old victim, called Sulaiman Madov, had been under surveillance for some time,” he added.

Russian media said on Monday a man identified as Sulim Yamadayev, a former rebel chief who has been at loggerheads with the Moscow-backed strongman president, had been the victim of an attempt murder in the United Arab Emirates.

It said he had been badly wounded rather than killed.

The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper said Yamadayev, who has lived in Dubai for the past five months, had a passport in the name of Sulaiman Madov.

The Russian Embassy in the United Arab Emirates said it could not immediately comment on the attack. “We are double-checking the reports and rumors,” an embassy official told AFP.

Yamadayev had been a commander of an elite battalion until he was dismissed last year.