Musaeva arrested under new criminal case

A court in Chechnya has sent Zarema Musaeva into custody within a new criminal case of disrupting the activities of a penal colony. A human rights defender has linked the new case to a social media post placed by one of Musaeva's sons.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on December 13, Musaeva was charged with disorganizing the colony work; she faces up to five years in jail. On November 19, it became known that Zarema, suspected within a new case of attacking a law enforcer, was transferred to the Grozny SIZO (pre-trial prison). She moves around on crutches. The article that Musaeva was charged with is most often used in relation to the riots that burst out in colonies, a lawyer has noted.

The Visaitovsky District Court of Grozny has placed Musaeva into custody until February 1, 2025, the Team against Torture (TaT)* has reported.

According to Sergey Babinets, the TaT* head, the reason for the new criminal case may not only be in the reluctance to release Zarema, whose sons criticize Ramzan Kadyrov. "Earlier, we stated that the attitude to Zarema and her custody conditions changed for the worse depending on her sons' activeness on the Internet," the lawyer has explained.

It follows from Abubakar Yangulbaev's Telegram channel that on October 27 he placed a post directed against the head of Chechnya.

*The "Team against Torture" (TaT, formerly the "Committee against Torture" – CaT) was created by the lawyers who had earlier worked for the CaT, which was included into the register of the NCOs performing the functions of foreign agents.