Zarema Musayeva

A resident of Chechnya, wife of a retired judge of the republic's Supreme Court, and mother of activists Ibragim and Abubakar Yangulbayev, who criticise the republic's head Ramzan Kadyrov. In January 2022, Musaeva was forcibly taken from Nizhny Novgorod to Chechnya, allegedly for questioning in a fraud case. There, the woman was sentenced to 15 days of arrest under the article on petty hooliganism (part 1 of article 20.1 of the Administrative Code), and was later charged with large-scale fraud (part 3 of article 159 of the Criminal Code) and violence against a police officer (part 2 of article 318 of the Criminal Code). As the Committee Against Torture wrote, the investigation claims that Musayeva, together with her "accomplice" in 2017, realised a fraudulent scheme related to consumer loans, and after being taken to Grozny for interrogation, scratched a policeman's cheek. In February 2022, a court in Grozny sent the woman to a pre-trial detention centre, where she remains to this day. Musayeva does not admit her guilt. The fraud case is based on the testimony of another defendant, who was released from the pre-trial detention centre after making a deal with the investigation. Some of the witnesses who claimed that Musayeva attacked the policeman were not eyewitnesses and allegedly learnt about the incident from the words of their colleagues. The investigation did not provide the video recordings from the department - moreover, the department's employees claimed that the broadcasts from the video surveillance cameras were not saved, whereas, according to the information on the state procurement website, the recordings should have been kept for at least 14 days. According to the investigation, Musayeva inflicted eight abrasions with her fingers and one wound on the face of the victim policeman - this was qualified as violence dangerous to life or health. The Ministry of Health responded to the lawyer's request that the wounds and abrasions themselves do not cause harm to health if they have not become inflamed or suppurated. The expert Maskhud Chumakov considered that the very fact of bandaging was evidence of harm to health. In addition, in his expert report, the lawyers found the phrase "discuss on the forum", which suggests that part of the document was sloppily copied from the Internet. In April, Musaeva's lawyers claimed falsification of evidence indicating the discovery of the victim's blood under the woman's fingernails: the defenders pointed out that no connection between the nail slices taken from Musaeva and those examined was presented in the case materials. During a year and a half in the pre-trial detention centre Musaeva began to have serious health problems. In early June, due to back pain, she was practically unable to move around. In addition, the woman suffers from type 2 diabetes and several related diseases that require constant medical supervision. Musaeva's lawyers reported that she suffers from acute hypertensive crises, sometimes accompanied by loss of consciousness. Despite this, Musayeva continues to be denied thorough examination and hospitalisation. On 5 June 2023, she was admitted to the hospital for a routine check-up, but the very next day the woman returned to the pre-trial detention centre. On 15 June Musayeva reported that she was feeling better. According to the woman, doctors examined her and took analyses. On 4 July 2023 Musaeva was sentenced to five and a half years in a general regime colony. On the day of the verdict, her lawyer Alexander Nemov, and Yelena Milashina, a journalist of Novaya Gazeta who had previously written about Chechnya, who had travelled to Grozny, were brutally beaten by unknown persons. On 12 September 2023, the court of appeal reduced Musaeva's sentence to five years and replaced the general regime colony with a settlement colony. On 5 March 2024, the court of cassation reduced the sentence by three months. On 29 October 2024, an investigator came to Musaeva's colony to question her about her alleged assault on an FSIN officer who accompanied her on her daily trips to the hospital. Musayeva denies the fact of the attack; she does not know what incident we are talking about. In November 2024, it became known that a case was opened against Musayeva for disorganising the work of the Federal Penitentiary Service institution. According to the investigation, she hit an employee on the neck and pulled off his epaulette.