* Dubai police detain Russian suspect after shooting

* Organised criminal group believed behind Yamadayev murder

(Adds police chief statement, paragraph 10)

By Tamara Walid

DUBAI, March 31 (Reuters) - Dubai police said on Tuesday they had detained a Russian national in connection with the killing of an ex-rebel Chechen leader identified as a prominent foe of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

Dubai's police chief said the suspect was held following last week's assassination of Sulim Yamadayev.

"Police have detained a Russian national who is under investigation," Major General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim told Reuters.

"There is a suspect but we are still investigating. Nevertheless, the case is clear and there is no confusion over what happened. An organised criminal group was behind the assassination," he said.

Yamadayev was shot in an underground car park of a luxury seaside apartment block in Dubai, a Gulf Arab tourism hub that is home to thousands of wealthy expatriates.

Tamim rejected Russian media reports Yamadayev had survived the attack.

"He was shot and died instantly on the scene," Tamim said, adding he had been shot from behind.

"He had two people with him. They did not have any weapons but tried to resist the assailant but he was able to escape. One of them claimed the gunman hit him with the butt of his gun on the head before escaping. He is suffering from a head injury."

Yamadayev, a Chechen rebel who became a decorated Russian officer, had challenged Moscow-backed Kadyrov for control of Chechen security forces until last year, when he was dismissed from commanding an elite battalion and forced to flee.

Yamadayev had been living in Dubai in the past four months, Tamim said in a statement carried by the state news agency WAM, adding that he expected Russian authorities to help in tracking those involved in the shooting.

Russia fought two wars during the 1990s against separatists in mainly Muslim Chechnya and eventually tamed the province by allowing former rebels from the Kadyrov clan who switched sides to take over the local government.

Last September, Sulim's brother Ruslan -- a former military commander in Chechnya -- was killed by unidentified gunmen in a busy central Moscow street. Kadyrov at that time rejected accusations he had been behind the murder and said the killers wanted to discredit him and to destabilise Chechnya.

Chechen exiles say three Chechens have been assassinated in the last six months in Istanbul and one in Vienna. Kadyrov has rejected claims he could be linked to those murders. (Writing by Thomas Atkins; Editing by Charles Dick)

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