At a party with the Chechen shot in Dubai

It’s one of those stories that you have to stop and check yourself about. It fascinates you personally, but you think that you’re probably the only person in the newsroom to care, if not the only person in Britain, maybe.

We were in Dubai doing a completely different story (of which more later). But the papers were instead full of the story of a Chechen shot dead outside his luxury apartment block. At first he was identified as Suleiman Madov – and most people dismissed it as a bit of Russian gangland thuggery gone exotic out in that neon desert metropolis.

But slowly more details gathered: Echo Moscow radio station began reporting that he might have been a man called Suleiman Yamadayev. This is where my interest piqued, together with the clear recognition that this was insider baseball, big-time, for Chechen war students.

Sulim Yamadayev – who was, the Russian consulate later confirmed, the victim of the shooting – was head of a unit of pro-Russian Chechen soldiers called the “Vostok”. Sulim was a bit of a wildcard in the new Chechnya. At first he was friends with the new president of the war-torn republic, Ramzan Kadyrov.

But being friends with Ramzan and retaining your own private retinue of soldiers is a tricky business. Sulim was allowed to hang on to his troops as they were used, reportedly, repeatedly, by the Russian ministry of defence for various counter-terrorism and anti-insurgency operations in Chechnya. They weren’t meant to be that charming a bunch, but highly effective. There were even reports that they turned up in Georgia during the war last summer.

Sulim cut a distinctive figure as their leader. I met him at Ramzan Kadyrov’s 30th birthday party, which I part-gatecrashed in Grozny for the programme back in October 2006.

Ramzan was busy getting a Harley Davidson motorbike from admirers, when Sulim swanned into the crowd, a little “frazzled”, if I might put it delicately. He had on his face a few splashes of the green antiseptic Russian medics use to treat cuts, and what appeared to be a pistol in his belt. That, together with a stonewashed denim jacket that would have made Def Leppard proud, rounded off the image of something of a loose cannon.

He walked up to Ramzan, and they appeared extremely friendly. Sulim pulled out his party tour de force, a huge carpet. He unrolled it in front of a delighted Ramzan, to reveal a huge portrait of the pro-Russian Chechen president. Ramzan beamed. Sulim grinned. Some people surely wondered if Sulim meant Ramzan’s guests to walk over his image… Ramzan turned his attention to his motorbike and party again.

It was an almost touching display of affection. But the talk now is that things have soured – that Ramzan and Sulim fell out. Sulim’s brother was shot dead in Moscow. Other critics of Ramzan have also been killed.

And yesterday it emerges that Adam Delimkhanov, now an MP with immunity from prosecution, is a key suspect in the murder. The Dubai police say that while the gunmen have fled and they have an Iranian and Tajik set of suspects, the alleged brain behind the scheme is Mr Delimkhanov.

I remember him too, from the party, as the man who spent much of his time welcoming Sulim to the fray, who put his arm around the denim jacketed shoulders.

Mr Delimkhanov has released a statement furiously denying the charges. These assassinations and recriminations cast a pall over the iron-clad peace the Kremlin says that Mr Kadyrov’s presidency has brought to the decade of violence in Chechnya.

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