MOSCOW, Feb 5 (Reuters) - A former deputy mayor of the capital of Chechnya was shot dead in Moscow on Thursday, a police spokesman said, the third high-profile killing of a Chechen emigre since September.

The gunman shot Gilani Shepiyev at about 1 a.m. (2200 GMT) when he returned to his home in the west of Moscow.

Local news agencies said Shepiyev had served as deputy mayor of Grozny, capital of the south Russian region of Chechnya where Russian forces have fought separatists. He fled Grozny in 2006 after he was shot and injured in an assassination attempt.

Shepiyev is the third high-profile Chechen emigre to have been shot since late September when a gunman killed Ruslan Yamadayev, a former deputy in the Russian parliament, in Moscow.

Yamadayev was one of three brothers at the centre of a family that had opposed Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov has denied any involvement in his death.

Last month a former member of Kadyrov's bodyguard service was shot dead in Vienna where he had a fled. He had accused Kadyrov of torture, allegations Kadyrov has denied. (Reporting by James Kilner and Tanya Ustinova; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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