The prosecution of Zarema Musaeva

Zarema Musaeva is the mother of Chechen activists Ibragim and Abubakar Yangulbaev, and the wife of former federal judge Saidi Yangulbaev. In January, unidentified people who claimed to be police officers forcibly took her from Nizhny Novgorod—a city on the Volga River east of Moscow—to Chechnya, supposedly for questioning as a witness in a fraud case (Article 159 of the Criminal Code).

In Grozny, Musaeva was given 15 days of administrative arrest on charges of petty hooliganism (Part 1, Article 20.1 of the Administrative Code). A few days later, authorities opened a new case against her for allegedly using violence against a police officer (Part 2, Article 318 of the Criminal Code): she supposedly scratched the face of an officer as he was writing her up.

At the same time, her procedural status in the fraud case changed: on 27 January, Musaeva was formally charged. According to investigators, in 2017 at the “Berkat” market, Musaeva met Madina Azimova and supposedly told her about a fraudulent scheme, thereby inciting her to commit a crime. However, the case materials contain no correspondence or call logs between Musaeva and Azimova.

On 2 February, a court in Grozny ordered Musaeva to be held in pre-trial detention for two months. Her detention was repeatedly extended despite serious health issues: she has been diagnosed with diabetes. In August, the Leninsky District Court in Grozny refused to transfer Musaeva’s case to another region.

In 2015, brothers Ibragim and Abubakar and their father Saidi Yangulbaev were tortured in Chechnya—this was reported by Ibragim. At the end of December 2021, Musaeva’s eldest son, Abubakar Yangulbaev, announced that over twenty of his relatives had been abducted in Chechnya. The brothers link the persecution of their family to their activism and criticism of the Kadyrov regime: Abubakar is a former lawyer with the “Committee Against Torture” and Ibragim is one of the leaders of the opposition Telegram channel “1ADAT.”

In February 2022, State Duma member Adam Delimkhanov and several other officials issued threats against the Yangulbaev family, saying they would be beheaded. Earlier, Kadyrov himself had made similar statements. The Investigative Committee refused to investigate these threats.

Zarema Musaeva is now in pre-trial detention. You can support her by sending a letter! This can be done using the FSIN-letter service or via the “Rosuznik” project:

Grozny, SIZO-1, Leninsky District, 2 Kunta-Khadzhi Kishieva St., 364 037

Musaeva Zarema Abuyazitovna (1969)