(PTI): The leading opponent of Chechnya’s pro-Moscow president Ramzan Kadyrov has been gunned down in the luxury Jumeirah Beach Resort in Dubai. Sulim Yamadayev, a former battalion commander in the Russian army, was shot three times by unknown assailants in an underground garage in Dubai on Saturday.

Dubai security officials said he later died from his wounds after falling into a coma at a military hospital. Yamadayev who was decorated as a ‘Hero of Russia’ for his anti-terrorist military service in the Caucasus was removed from his duties in August over an alleged involvement in the 1998 abduction and murder of a Chechen tradesman.

He was instantly placed on a wanted list by Chechen prosecutors, while facing three criminal cases for murder and kidnapping.

Yamadayey is the latest of the foes of Ramzan Kadyrov to be assassinated in recent years.

Umar Ismailov, a Chechen exile who was planning to expose Kadyrov in a torture case, was also shot dead by two men in Vienna in January.

In September 2008, Yamadayev’s older brother, Ruslan, a former Duma deputy and ‘Hero of Russia’, was also shot dead while driving through the center of Moscow.

Five months ago and after the death of his brother, Yamadayev together with his wife and 6 children fled to Dubai, where he lived under a false name.