You're reading: Italy detains brother of top Chechen rebel

The brother of Russia's most prominent Islamist rebel Doku Umarov was detained in Italy on his way to seek political asylum, Russian newspapers reported on Tuesday citing Italian immigration officers.

Ruslan Umarov, a native of the restive Chechnya region, was travelling from France to Italy when he was detained in a train station outside Venice for entering the country illegally. Media reports said he was detained on Jan. 6.

He was based in Europe after he won a 2008 case in the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights against Russia.

Ruslan’s brother Doku leads the Caucasus Emirate, an Islamist insurgent group seeking to establish an independent Islamic state for the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region along Russia’s southern flank..

Doku Umarov is Russia’s most wanted man and was placed on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorists last year. He has another brother last known to be living in Turkey.

Italy’s paramilitary police, the carabinieri, said on Tuesday they would not comment on the alleged detention.

Russian investigators have blamed North Caucasus rebels for the devastating bombing of Moscow’s busiest airport last week, which killed 35 people and injured 130.

Authorities in the North Caucasus have directly blamed the Caucasus Emirate for the attack, which earlier claimed responsibility for a separate twin suicide bomb attack on the Moscow metro that killed 40 in March last year.

Moscow has failed to quell the insurgency fuelled by two separatist wars in Chechnya, as well as a volatile mix of the ideology of jihad (holy war) and corruption that drives young people into the arms of the growing Islamist movement.

If Ruslan Umarov is charged, there is a chance he could be extradited to Russia. Ties are strong between Moscow and Rome.
Umarov won a court settlement in 2008 at the influential European Court against Russia for the illegal disappearance of his son, who worked in state security services, a Court spokeswoman told Reuters.