19:31, 16 February 2026

A court in Grozny overturned the sentence against Zarema Musayeva.

The Supreme Court of Chechnya overturned the sentence of Zarema Musayeva and, at the request of the prosecutor, remanded the case for a new trial.

As "Caucasian Knot reported, the prosecution demanded that Musayeva be sentenced to four years in a penal colony for disrupting the work of a penal colony. The Shali Court of Chechnya sentenced Zarema Musayeva to three years and 11 months in prison for attacking a security officer; her defense filed an appeal against the verdict. She will have to spend a total of four years in a penal colony—one month left on her previous sentence. The prosecution's version of Zarema Musayeva's attack on a prison colony employee is based solely on his testimony; witnesses did not confirm her guilt, the defense stated, demanding that their client be acquitted. In her final statement, Musayeva refused to admit guilt and asked not to be sent to the penal colony where she served her first sentence, as she fears for her life.

On July 4, 2023, the court sentenced Zarema Musayeva to 5.5 years in prison, finding her guilty of assaulting a police officer. The appellate court reduced the sentence to five years and ordered Musayeva's transfer to a penal colony. The cassation court reduced Musayeva's sentence by an additional three months, to four years and nine months. This term expired on March 23, 2025. On November 11, 2024, it was reported that a criminal case had been opened against Musayeva for disrupting the activities of a penal colony. Investigators believe that Musayeva, while returning from treatment in the same car with a penal colony employee, "struck him in the neck with her palm" and "torn the left shoulder strap from his uniform." Details are provided in the "Caucasian Knot" report "The Case of Zarema Musayeva".

The Supreme Court of Chechnya heard the defense's appeal against Zarema Musayeva's sentence. The lawyer requested that the sentence be overturned and Musayeva released. The prosecutor agreed with the lawyer's arguments at that hearing and also requested that the guilty verdict be overturned and the case be retried. Musayeva will await a new trial in a pretrial detention center—her pretrial detention has been upheld, the "Team Against Torture"* reported today.

Zarema Musayeva is the wife of former federal judge Saidi Yangulbaev. Chechen security forces took her away from her apartment in Nizhny Novgorod on January 20, 2022. After this, Ramzan Kadyrov accused the Yangulbayev family of organizing a terrorist network and stated that their place awaited them "in prison or underground."

You can read about Kadyrov's conflict with the Yangulbayevs in the "Caucasian Knot" reports "How the Yangulbayevs Became Kadyrov's Enemies" and "The Main Thing About Kadyrov's Struggle with the Yangulbayevs".

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Translated automatically via Google translate from https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/420855