Chechen leader, rival make surprise peace deal
* Reconciliation likely to silence vocal critic
* Peace deal seen as product of Moscow's pressure
* Austria won't bring murder charges against Kadyrov
By Amie Ferris-Rotman
MOSCOW, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has made peace with a longtime rival who had accused the Kremlin-backed leader of having two of his brothers killed.
The unexpected reconciliation appears likely to silence Isa Yamadayev, one of the most vocal critics of the Chechen leader on whom Moscow relies to maintain order in the violence-plagued region in Russia's North Caucasus.
Yamadayev had accused Kadyrov of being behind the 2008 killing of his brother Ruslan, a Russian parliament deputy who was gunned down on a Moscow street, and the fatal shooting of another brother, Sulim, in Dubai last year.
In an unrelated case, Austrian prosecutors said on Tuesday they did not have enough evidence to bring charges against Kadyrov over the killing of a Chechen in Vienna last year despite an earlier police report that implicated him. [ID:nLDE63Q21U]
Such accusations echoed assertions by human rights groups that Kadyrov had organised killings of opponents at home and abroad -- accusations he has denied.
The Russian daily Vedomosti, citing a source close to Chechnya's leadership, said Moscow had pushed Yamadayev to make peace with Kadyrov to avoid further bloodshed.
Under police protection in recent months, Yamadayev has only appeared in public surrounded by heavily armed guards.
"Achieving reconciliation with the Yamadayevs is one of Kadyrov's greatest successes, since this was the last large clan that challenged his leadership," Vedomosti quoted political analyst Yegor Engelgardt as saying in Tuesday's edition.
Neither Kadyrov nor Yamadayev, a businessman, offered a clear explanation for their abrupt decision to end their feud.
"We came to the opinion that there is no substantial reason preventing normal relations between us," the Interfax news agency quoted Yamadayev as saying after a meeting with Kadyrov in the Chechen capital Grozny on Monday.
On official site chechnya.gov.ru, Kadyrov's press service said he had received Yamadayev and his mother at their request.
KREMLIN ALLY
The Kremlin appointed Kadyrov to contain an Islamic insurgency in Muslim Chechnya, a decade after Moscow drove separatists from power in the second of two wars.
Analysts had said the slaying of Sulim Yamadayev, a top commander in Chechnya and a former Kadyrov ally, removed one of the last powerful opponents of Kadyrov's increasing control over the region, where blood feuds still influence politics.
Rights groups accuse forces controlled by Kadyrov of torture and abductions, charges he has always denied. He has amassed a large militia, and analysts say he could eventually pose a renewed threat to Kremlin control over Chechnya.
A Dubai court sentenced two men to life in prison in April after convicting them of involvement in Sulim Yamadayev's killing. Dubai police accused a close adviser to Kadyrov, Adam Delimkhanov, of masterminding the killing, which he denied.
Austrian police investigators said in a report in April they believed Kadyrov ordered the kidnapping of Chechen exile Umar Israilov in Vienna last year. The abduction went wrong and ended in the man's killing. Kadyrov denied involvement.
After reviewing the evidence, Vienna state prosecutors decided they could not bring charges against Kadyrov, prosecutors' office spokeswoman Michaela Schnell said on Tuesday.
"There is some circumstantial evidence but not enough substance for an arrest warrant or any other further measures," Schnell said. Last week the prosecutors charged three men under arrest in Austria with aiding Israilov's murder, she said. (Additional reporting by Boris Groendahl in Vienna; editing by Tim Pearce)
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