Armed men in civilian clothes and wearing masks broke into the house of Saidi Yangulbaev, a former judge of the Supreme Court of Chechnya, and abducted his wife, Zarema Musaeva. This was reported by the “Committee against Torture” (in 2015, after being entered by the Ministry of Justice into the register of foreign agents, the organization was liquidated; currently operating under the same name without forming a legal entity) in his Telegram-channel.
The woman was unconscious, she was taken out of the apartment and taken away in an unknown direction. She has diabetes, she needs constant insulin injections, at least one of which Musayeva has already missed. She also showed signs of a respiratory disease, the wife of the ex-judge took a coronavirus test on the day of the abduction.
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How it happened
On the evening of January 20, unknown people called the apartment of retired judge Yangulbaev in Nizhny Novgorod. They said that they were representatives of the law enforcement agencies of the Chechen Republic and were working on behalf of the investigator of the investigative department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for the city of Grozny, told in an interview with RBC, Sergey Babinets, lawyer of the Committee against Torture, who arrived at the former judge’s apartment at the time of the incident.
All of them were in civilian clothes, there was no one in uniform. They were wearing masks, in hoods, it was clear that they were security forces from Chechnya – they spoke with a characteristic accent, moreover, they introduced themselves
As a basis for detention, the security forces presented a decision to bring witnesses in a criminal case of fraud committed in 2019. Saidi Yangulbaev noted that this is a fictitious document, necessary in order to take the spouses to Chechnya as soon as possible.
It was not possible to detain the ex-judge, since he has immunity. Then, under the pretext of negotiations with the investigator, the armed men entered the apartment, beat those present and carried away Zarema Musayeva, who had lost consciousness.
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Actions of a lawyer
Babinets said that he called the police, the Investigative Committee, the FSB even before the abduction, and asked to come. As the Committee against Torture later noted, law enforcement officers arrived at the scene three hours later. In response to a request from the State Traffic Inspectorate to break through the numbers of the cars recorded by the lawyer, in which the Chechen security forces arrived, they said that the indicated numbers do not go through the bases.
The police accepted the statement of Lyudmila Kukhnina, an employee of the “Committee against Torture”, but did not come to the place of abduction, but to her, and took her to the station herself.
Babinets and his colleague Natalya Dobronravova intend to apply to the European Court of Human Rights, to the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Special Rapporteur.
We believe that Zarema Musaeva is threatened, her life and health, this abduction was violent, people were armed, what will happen to her is unknown
The lawyer noted that the incident is connected with the ongoing persecution of relatives of Chechen bloggers who criticize the authorities of the Chechen Republic.
Persecution of human rights defenders
At the end of December, Abubakar Yangulbaev, a lawyer for the North Caucasian branch of the Committee Against Torture and the son of Saidi Yangulbaev and Zarema Musaeva, reported about the abduction of about 40 of his relatives in Chechnya.
He noted that his relatives from Grozny and the village of Goity had been abducted and illegally detained in various police departments in Chechnya. The human rights activist suggested that this may be due to his professional activities. Another probable reason for the kidnapping, he called the security forces’ suspicions of involvement in one of the opposition Telegram channels.
According to the Committee Against Torture, Abubakar Yangulbaev was detained at the end of December, he was searched and interrogated on the case of justifying terrorism. Ibragim Yangulbaev spent about a year and a half in a pre-trial detention center in Grozny on a case of extremism and complained to the ECHR about beatings and torture by the police.
The Minister of the Chechen Republic for National Policy, Foreign Relations, Press and Information, Akhmed Dudayev, refuted accusations of kidnappings related to critics of the head of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov. He accused human rights activists of lies, who addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which they drew attention to alleged kidnappings.
Russian and international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, International, Federation for Human Rights, the Committee against Torture, and Memorial and Civic Assistance listed as foreign agents, according to Dudayev, are not associated with human rights.
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Reaction to kidnapping
Abubakar Yangulbaev recorded a video message in which he stated that what was happening was revenge on a human rights activist. He claims that his mother is seriously ill, she may not reach Chechnya.
The case was initiated in 2019 on the fact of fraud committed by some unknown woman. And my mother was not in Chechnya at all and cut off all ties with Chechnya in mid-2017. This is an excuse to kidnap her and hold her hostage.
Amnesty International demanded immediately release the kidnapped Zarema Musayeva. The organization called on the Russian authorities to immediately intervene in the situation, said Amnesty International Russia researcher Natalya Prilutskaya.
She stressed that such incidents are unacceptable, they cannot be hushed up and left unpunished.
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