Grozny court sentences mother of human rights activist and alleged opposition founder to 5.5 years in prison colony

The Akhmatovsky district court in Grozny has sentenced Zarema Musaeva, mother of human rights activist Abubakar Yangulbayev and the alleged co-founder of the Chechen opposition movement Adat, Ibrahim Yangulbayev, to 5.5 years in a prison colony, the Team against Torture reported.

The court found Musaeva guilty of fraud and violence against a police officer.

Musaeva is the wife of former Chechen Supreme Court judge Saidi Yangulbayev. In January 2022, Chechen law enforcerment kidnapped Musaeva in Nizhny Novgorod and took her to Chechnya. First, she was taken to a special detention center, and then to pre-trial detention for a case of violence against a police officer. According to the investigation, she assaulted a district police officer who was drawing up an administrative report on her. According to the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, she allegedly “almost took out [the police officer's] eye.”

After Musaeva’s abduction, the Yangulbayevs left Russia. According to her relatives, Musaeva’s eyesight has deteriorated during the year and a half in the pre-trial detention center and she can hardly move around due to back pain.