“In Chechnya there is not a single authority where one could turn.” The trial of Zarema Musaeva, the mother of Kadyrov’s opponents, began in Grozny

On August 31, in Grozny, the Leninsky District Court will begin to consider the merits of the case of Zarema Musaeva, the wife of former federal judge Saidi Yangulbaev. She was forcibly taken from Nizhny Novgorod to Grozny and was charged with strange charges of fraud and assault on a policeman. Musaeva’s sons are public opponents of Ramzan Kadyrov.

The place is either in prison or underground

“The case is related to the political and human rights activities of [Zarema Musayeva’s] sons. This was preceded by my detention [in December 2021 in Pyatigorsk]. They let me go because they agreed that I would go on vacation and return. I had to work for Kadyrov's propaganda. But I did not return and thus deceived them. I didn’t expect that they would kidnap my mother,” says Abubakar Yangulbaev, a former employee of the Committee against Torture, son of Zarema Musayeva.

On January 20, Chechen police broke into the apartment in Nizhny Novgorod where Zarema lived with her husband, former federal judge Saidi Yangulbaev. By law, a judge's home is inviolable. Nevertheless, they took his wife by force and took him to Chechnya - and not even as a suspect, but as a witness in a fraud case. Zarema has diabetes, but she was not allowed to take medication.

Problems for the Yangulbaev family began in the mid-2010s. One of Saidi’s sons, Ibragim, administrated a group in opposition to the Chechen authorities on VKontakte - for this, Saidi and his sons, Ibragim and Abubakar, according to them, were beaten right in the residence of Ramzan Kadyrov. Ibragim was kept in a pre-trial detention center in Chechnya.

The Committee against Torture helped them leave their small homeland, they moved to Nizhny Novgorod. Saidi's other son, Abubakar, became an employee of the Committee against Torture for some time. Now Ibrahim and Abubakar, as well as their sister Aliya and father Saidi, are outside Russia. Chechen authorities consider Ibragim to be involved in the 1Adat movement, which is in strong opposition to Ramzan Kadyrov. “1Adat” was banned in the Russian Federation by the decision of the Supreme Court of Chechnya as an extremist organization.

“The [Yangulbaev] family is waiting for a place either in prison or underground,” Ramzan Kadyrov commented on Musaeva’s detention in his Telegram channel. In early February, the Chechen authorities gathered a rally of thousands in Grozny, at which portraits of members of the Yangulbaev family were burned. The Yangulbaevs reported the abduction of their relatives in Chechnya: the security forces put pressure on them and threatened them.

In the fraud case, Zarema Musaeva was transferred from a witness to an accused, and she was also charged with assaulting a police officer - already in Grozny - and sent to a pre-trial detention center, where she is still being held.

Ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova became interested in Musayeva’s case, and the ECHR in February demanded that the Russian authorities report every two weeks about the detainee’s health condition. However, in mid-March Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe - then the Russian authorities announced that they would ignore the opinion of the Strasbourg court. Nevertheless, the leadership of the Grozny pre-trial detention center has become more attentive to the prisoner.

According to Abubakar Yangulbaev, mothers are provided with medicines in the pre-trial detention center, and those medicines that are not available behind bars are missed in the transfers. Musaeva's cellmate is a doctor. Abubakar believes that this could be done intentionally, so that the cellmate would immediately provide help if necessary - due to diabetes and anxiety, Museva’s health periodically deteriorates sharply.

Representative of the Team Against Torture (formerly the Committee Against Torture - OVD-Info ) Natalya Kurekina notes that the pre-trial detention center building itself is new, it is possible to take a shower, there is a fan in the cell, doctors from the pre-trial detention center medical unit are in contact with Musaeva’s lawyers.

The trial will take place in Chechnya

“In Chechnya there is not a single authority where one could turn. The Commissioner for Human Rights under Kadyrov completely ignores my appeals,” states Abubakar Yangulbaev.

In July, Musaeva’s lawyers announced surveillance; Chechen Ombudsman Mansur Soltaev called it a “mania of persecution” and offered to organize psychiatric treatment for them on the territory of the republic.

Musaeva's case was transferred to the Leninsky District Court of Grozny, where it began to be considered on its merits. The lawyers petitioned to transfer the trial to another region, but the court refused .

“We applied for a change in territorial jurisdiction. They justified it, among other things, by the conflict [with Ramzan Kadyrov] and gross procedural violations of Musayeva’s rights. A much fairer trial would be in Ingushetia, Ossetia, Rostov-on-Don,” says lawyer Natalya Dobronravova.

Musaeva is accused under Part 3 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code (large-scale fraud, up to six years in prison) and Part 2 of Article 318 of the Criminal Code (life-threatening violence against a government official).

The case of violence appeared on January 21, when Musaeva was brought to Grozny. According to investigators, she grabbed the policeman by the cheek and scratched his face. Witnesses in the case are other police officers. As Abubakar Yangulbaev says, on the same day when his mother allegedly attacked a policeman, Chechen television was filming her at the police department - the filming shows that Musaeva’s condition is absolutely not aggressive. There are video cameras at the police department, but for some reason they weren’t working at that moment. According to an examination carried out five days later, the blood of a policeman was found under Musayeva’s nails.

“We don’t believe this examination: in five days a person washes his hands many times. [Zarema] does namaz five times a day and [accordingly] ablutions,” notes Abubakar.

Zarema Musaeva became accused in the fraud case on January 27. According to the investigation, 41-year-old Madina Azimova persuaded her friends to get loans for the purchase of household appliances in the Eldorado chain store for almost a million rubles. According to law enforcement agencies, Azimova sold her equipment, but did not help her friends pay off their loans.

The investigation believes that Zarema Musaeva met Azimova at the central Grozny market “Berkat”. They didn’t even exchange phone numbers, but Musaeva voiced this fraudulent scheme to Azimova, thereby inciting the crime. The meeting took place in 2017, Madina implemented her plans in 2019. Despite the absence of calls or correspondence between Azimova and Musayeva, as follows from the case materials, a certain man arrived at Azimova’s house in a black Toyota and Azimova gave him part of the money for Musayeva for developing a crime plan.

Dobronravova says that the case against Azimova has been separated into separate proceedings, since she entered into a pre-trial agreement.

“Neither my mother nor anyone else from our family knows Asimov. We found out that she is a repeat offender. Neither the car that came to Azimova’s house nor the man who allegedly took the money has been identified,” says Abubakar.

He notes that Azimova testified against Musaeva only a week after she was brought to Grozny. Why Musaeva even became a witness in this case and why she had to be taken out of Nizhny Novgorod by force on January 20, the investigation cannot explain.

Abubakar says that he continues to receive threats from Kadyrov’s supporters on telegram and Instagram. According to Abubakar, Ishak Chalaev, the head of the Gudermes police and the brother of Zamid Chalaev, one of the leaders of the Chechen National Guards in Ukraine, participated in the removal of his mother from Nizhny Novgorod. Iskhak Chalaev publicly challenged Abubakar to a duel. Abubakar accepted the challenge, proposing to conduct a duel in the format of a public discussion of his mother’s case - to which the policeman, however, no longer agreed.

At the preliminary hearing in Musayeva’s case, the court rejected the request to transfer the trial to another region. A hearing on the merits of the case is scheduled for August 31. Project “Support for political prisoners. Memorial recognized Musayeva as a political prisoner at the end of August.