Badrudi Yamadayev, a younger brother of the commander of the Russian Defense Ministry's Vostok special battalion in Chechnya, Sulim Yamadayev, was sentenced in 2003 to 11 years in prison for attempted murder, but was later released on parole. He is currently wanted by law enforcement bodies.
"When detained he will be charged with violating the conditions of his prison release," a spokesman for the local Penitentiary Service said, adding that Yamadayev was permitted to live outside a prison colony, but had to register with law enforcement bodies at regular intervals, which he had recently failed to do.
Yamadayev was sentenced to prison for attempted murder of Moscow's deputy chief sanitarian Alexander Melnikov in June 2000. Melnikov was shot, but survived.
The search for Yamadayev began this week after he was suspected of being behind an alleged shootout in Chechnya April 14, involving security convoys of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov and Vostok battalion's Commander Sulim Yamadayev.
Two rival columns of vehicles crashed on Monday on a highway in Gudermes after refusing to give way to each other. However, the Russian Defense Ministry officially denied Wednesday that a shootout between the rivals had occurred.
The spokesman added that the search for Badrudi Yamadayev had spread outside of the Chechen Republic.
In a local television interview on Wednesday, Chechen President Kadyrov accused the Yamadayev brothers of a number of crimes and demanded that they be brought to justice.
"The Yamadayev brothers are linked to a number of serious crimes, including murders and abductions, as well as the events in the Borozdinovskaya [village]," Kadyrov said.
Vostok battalion troops conducted a special military operation in the Borozdinovskaya village in the summer of 2005. Four houses were burnt down, 11 people disappeared and a 77-year-old man died as a result of the operation.
"A criminal must be in a jail. The law is universal for everyone," Kadyrov added.
