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The Shali City Court has sentenced Zarema Musaeva, the mother of Chechen opposition activists, to three years and eleven months in a penal settlement in a case of violence against a Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) officer (Part 2, Article 321 of the Russian Criminal Code), reports the “Team Against Torture.”

The prosecutor had requested a sentence one month longer.

The day before, in her final statement, Musaeva asked not to be sent to the same institution where she had served her first sentence. This is the institution where the FSIN officer who is now recognised as a victim in her second case works:

“I have just one huge request to the FSIN director: please do not send me to Penal Settlement No. 3. I fear for my life. I beg anyone who can help me—please help me, so that I don’t end up there.”

Musaeva was accused of hitting a FSIN officer and tearing off his epaulette while travelling with him in a car from the hospital. She denies guilt and says she did not use violence against the man.

“The officer claimed that Musaeva demanded to be left in the medical facility and was angered that she was being transported back and forth. But Zarema herself and witnesses know that the indicated medical facility does not have a 24-hour inpatient department, and Zarema has been receiving treatment there since 2009,” said her lawyer, Alexander Savin.

The victim also claimed that Musaeva repeatedly insulted him, but the “Team Against Torture” noted that none of the 14 witnesses questioned in court confirmed this.

In July 2023, Musaeva was convicted in her first case—fraud (Part 3, Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code) and violence against a police officer (Part 2, Article 318). She was allegedly involved in consumer credit fraud, and in 2022, after being abducted by Chechen security agents in Nizhny Novgorod—a major city on the Volga river—and taken to Grozny for questioning, she scratched a police officer’s cheek. Initially, she was sentenced to five and a half years in prison, but on appeal her term was reduced to four years and nine months.

The second criminal case was opened against Musaeva several months before her first sentence was due to end.

She has been in detention since January 2022. Prior to this, Chechen security agents abducted her from her own flat in Nizhny Novgorod and transported her by car to Chechnya.

While in detention, Musaeva, who has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, atherosclerotic cardiosclerosis, arterial hypertension and other illnesses, regularly experiences health issues. She was hospitalised several times because of this. She now struggles to move due to pain, and has repeatedly suffered acute hypertensive crises, in some cases with loss of consciousness.

17:36 Taking into account one month of the previous sentence still to be served, the total term ordered for Zarema Musaeva will be four years. This was reported by the “Team Against Torture,” citing her lawyer Alexander Savin. Musaeva has decided not to appeal the verdict: firstly, because she does not believe this would be effective, and secondly, because it is difficult for her to remain in the pre-trial detention centre due to her health condition. She therefore wishes to leave the facility and move on to the place where she will serve her sentence.

  • Zarema Musaeva is the wife of retired federal judge Saidi Yangulbaev. Their sons link their mother’s persecution to their activism: they run the opposition channel 1ADAT, which reports on abductions in Chechnya and regularly criticises the head of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov. In 2022, the Supreme Court of Chechnya declared the public movement “1Adat” extremist, naming one of Musaeva’s sons, Ibragim Yangulbaev, as its leader. He was later added to the list of “extremists and terrorists.” In 2023, another son, Abubakar Yangulbaev, became the subject of criminal cases—one of them under the article on incitement to terrorism.
  • In December 2021, Abubakar Yangulbaev reported the abduction of more than twenty of his relatives in Chechnya. Prior to this, Kadyrov had publicly alleged the Yangulbaevs' involvement in running the 1ADAT channel.
  • According to Ibragim Yangulbaev, in 2015 he, his brother Abubakar, and their father were taken to Kadyrov’s residence, where the three were tortured. At that time, the brothers' father was forced to resign. Ibragim linked the abduction to the fact that he managed a social media community highlighting events in Chechnya. In addition, he was arrested in 2017 under anti-hate speech charges (Part 1, Article 282) regarding “Russian military personnel.” In early 2019, Ibragim was released due to the partial decriminalisation of Article 282.