Руслан Лабазанов: Чечен батыры мен қылмыс жетекшісінің тағдыры

Chechen mob boss and warlord

Ruslan Labazanov (1967 – disappeared 1 June 1996) was a pro Russian Chechen mob boss turned warlord who led the Russian supported Chechen anti Dzhokhar Dudayev faction in the First Chechen War.

Labazanov was born in internal exile in Kazakhstan in 1967 in the Chechen family of a teyp Nohch Keloy (clan). He became an Eastern martial arts expert and served in the Soviet Red Army as a physical training instructor. After leaving the army, he became known as a flamboyant, charismatic and extremely violent gangster. In 1990, he was convicted of murder in Rostov on Don and sentenced to death before escaping from prison in 1991.

In 1992, Labazanov aligned closely with the Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev, eventually becoming the chief of Dudayev's personal Presidential Guard and holding a rank of captain in the Chechen National Guard (in 1992–1993 he had also been engaged in illegal arms trade) before failing out with him after a year and half during the 1993 Chechen constitutional crisis. After a bloody two day clash between his followers and allies, including Chechen mafia boss Nikolay Suleimanov, and Dudayev's loyalists in the centre of the Chechen capital Grozny on June 13–14, Labazanov fled the city and promptly declared a blood feud against Dudayev for the death of his relative (either a brother or a cousin), whose head was publicly displayed among the heads of three other Labazanov's henchmen. Labazanov assumed a role of a "Chechen Robin Hood", a self styled defender of the people against the oppressive authorities. was based in and around the town of Argun and supplied with T 72 tanks and other heavy weapons provided by the Russian special services. They also provided personal security and other armed men for Ruslan Khasbulatov (freshly released from Russian prison following his defeat in the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis), and his abortive peacemaking initiative. On June 1, 1996, it was reported that Labazanov was slain together with a bodyguard at the village of Tolstoy Yurt, 15 kilometres north of Grozny. He was reportedly gunned down at point blank range in his fortified castle like house, where he had been living with his three wives. The perpetrator was allegedly one of his own men. The Russians quickly implicated the Chechen separatist field commander Shamil Basayev in the killing.