Сlient of lawyer beaten up in Chechnya is sentenced to 5½ years in penal colony
A court in the Chechen capital, Grozny, has sentenced Zarema Musayeva to five and a half years in a penal colony for violence against a government official and fraud. Musayeva’s defence lawyer, Alexander Nemov, was attacked and brutally beaten in Chechnya on 4 July.
Source: Russian Air Force service; Medusa; Team Against Torture Telegram channel
Quote from Team Against Torture: "Zarema Musayeva has been sentenced to five and a half years in a general regime penal colony.
This is the term that the prosecutor requested for Zarema. The Akhmatovskiy District Court in Grozny has just found her guilty of fraud and using violence against a police officer."
Details: Human rights activists said the verdict was politically motivated.
Musayeva is the wife of former Chechen federal judge Saidi Yangulbayev. Their sons, Abubakar and Ibrahim, are human rights activists and opposition figures. The family was forced to leave Chechnya in 2017. [Chechnya is a federal subject of Russia. The Ukrainian parliament has recognised it as temporarily Russian-occupied territory of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria – ed.]
On 20 January 2022, security forces claiming to work for Chechen law enforcement agencies broke into the apartment in Nizhny Novgorod where Saidi Yangulbayev, Zarema Musayeva and their children lived. They took Zaremа Musayeva to Chechnya, preventing her from taking the medication she needed (she has type 2 diabetes). The security forces’ explanation for their actions was that they needed to interrogate Musayeva in a fraud case, but once in Grozny, she was accused of assaulting a police officer and arrested.
According to Nastoyashcheye Vremya ("Present Time"), the Chechen authorities have linked the Yangulbayevs to the 1ADAT movement, which is openly critical of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and whose website is blocked in Russia. Abubakar and Saidi deny any connection with 1ADAT. Only Ibrahim has confirmed his involvement in the movement.
At the end of 2021, the Yangulbayevs reported that dozens of their relatives in Chechnya had been abducted. Kadyrov himself has described the family as terrorists and promised to go after them.
In January 2023, Abubakar Yangulbayev contacted Kadyrov and offered to exchange himself for his mother, as Zarema's health had deteriorated over the past year. He also said that a woman "should not be held responsible for her sons' actions".
In December 2021 or early 2022, the Yangulbayev family left Russia due to threats.
Background:
- On 4 July, masked assailants attacked and brutally beat Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Milashina and lawyer Alexander Nemov in Chechnya. Milashina's fingers were broken and the victims’ equipment and documents were destroyed.
- Milashina and Nemov were on their way to a court hearing in the case of Zarema Musayeva, who was abducted by Chechen security forces. Nemov represents Musayeva in court, and Milashina was travelling to report on the hearing.
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