After mother apologizes for suggesting foul play, Chechnya gifts housing to widower of young woman who died mysteriously 

The Chechen authorities have bestowed a new, furnished house to the widower and children of Madina Umayeva, the 23-year-old woman who died in June under questionable circumstances. A state television report announcing the gift highlighted that Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov recently promised Umayeva’s children would not go for want.

Umayeva perished last month during an argument with her in-laws, who say she died after falling down the stairs during an epileptic seizure. The relatives then buried her that very night. Umayeva’s mother questioned this version of events, saying her daughter never suffered from epilepsy and previously said that her husband beat her. The local authorities later exhumed Umayeva’s body for an autopsy, but the results of that analysis remain unknown.

When the allegations by Umayeva’s mother led to a scandal, Ramzan Kadyrov met with the family and seemed to defend spousal abuse, saying, “Sometimes married couples have arguments and sometimes the husband uses his fists.” Kadyrov also entrusted Umayeva’s children to her widower and criticized the decision to exhume Umayeva’s body. Umayeva’s mother also apologized publicly for suggesting that her daughter had been murdered. 

According to the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Umayeva’s widower, Vsekhadzhi Khamidov, worked with Kadyrov’s cousin at a training center for Chechnya’s special police forces in the Kadyrovs’ hometown of Tsentaroy.