Former president of Chechnya, Kadyrov was "elected" in October of 2003. The election, like most in which Russia has thrown its weight in, was won by the Kremlin-backed candidate. Kadyrov remained president until May, 2004, when he was assassinated by a bomb planted at a Victory Day celebration in Grozny.
Akhmat Abdulkhamidovich Kadyrov was born in Kazakhstan (formerly Kazakh SSR) in 1951. His family later returned to Chechnya, where he remained until leaving to study in Uzbekistan. While in Uzbekistan, he studied to become a mufti and would later become the acting mufti of the Chechen Republic in 1993.
At first associated with the Chechen insurgency after the fall for the Soviet Union in 1991, Kadyrov later took a staunch pro-Moscow position. Besides maintaining posisitive relations with Moscow, his regime took action against Chechen rebels. Human Rights Watch (among other organizations) reported numerous incidents of torture, extra-judicial killings, disappearences, and other human rights abuses as having occured under the Kadyrov regime.