A FOREIGN dictator with an ''appalling'' human rights record and links
to murders of his political opponents will have two runners in
Victoria's spring racing carnival.
Chechnyan President Ramzan Kadyrov - who was described as ''a new
Stalin'' by a journalist weeks before she was assassinated - is
preparing the gelding Mourilyan for the Melbourne Cup and the stallion
Bankable for the Mackinnon Stakes, which is run on Derby Day.
Racing Victoria officials say they are powerless to prevent the former
warlord's horses competing or to stop him from cheering them on at
Flemington Racecourse.
The Greens leader Bob Brown demanded that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
''intervene and do all he can to stop him and his horses from coming''.
''If this nasty character were to get his hands on the Melbourne Cup,
it would be the lowest point in Australia's sporting history,'' Senator
Brown said.
Mourilyan is guaranteed a run in the ''race that stops a nation'' and is rated a chance.
Victory would be a public relations disaster as Governor-General
Quentin Bryce is due to present the cup to the winning horse's
connections.
Mr Kadyrov, 32, was given the ''new Stalin'' moniker by Russia's most
fearless investigative reporter, Anna Politkovskaya, in 2006. Within
weeks she was gunned down in her Moscow apartment block. Mr Kadyrov has
denied involvement, demanding in an article in The Independent
newspaper in London in 2007: ''Why would I have killed her?''
A Moscow-based representative of Human Rights Watch International,
Allison Gill, said of Mr Kadyrov: ''It's fair to say [his] human rights
record is appalling. He has presided over a series of armed groups
which are accused of serious human rights violations… There is credible
evidence of Kadyrov and forces under his control being linked to
everything from abductions, the disappearance of people now believed
dead, the extensive use of secret prisons, to torture.''
When Mourilyan ran at Dubai's prestigious World Cup racing meet in
March, an exiled Chechnyan political opponent was gunned down hours
before the race. The assassin left a gold-plated handgun as a calling
card.
Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim has named Mr Kadyrov's cousin and
right-hand man Adam Delimkhanov as the person who ordered the hit - a
charge he denies.
As well as that death, in the past year Mr Kadyrov has also been linked
to the slaying of human rights worker Natalya Estemirova, who was
abducted and shot while investigating government militias, and the
assassination of Mr Kadyrov's former bodyguard, Umar Israilov, who was
shot in Vienna.
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