Zarema Musaeva. Photo: SOTAvision / Antonina Favorskaya
A Chechen court has sentenced Zarema Musaeva, the jailed mother of three exiled Chechen activists, to almost four years in a penal colony after convicting her of disruption at her correctional facility, Russian human rights nonprofit Crew Against Torture reported on Wednesday.
According to the investigation, Musaeva, who was already serving a custodial sentence on another charge, attacked a prison guard and scratched his neck. She was sentenced to three years and 11 months in prison, just one month short of the four years requested by the prosecution.
Musaeva, 56, is the wife of former Chechen Supreme Court justice Saidi Yangulbaev, who fled Russia in 2022 after being threatened by Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the republic. Her sons Abubakar, Ibragim and Baisangur Yangulbaev, currently living in exile, are well-known activists and critics of Kadyrov.
Chechen security forces kidnapped Musaeva from the city of Nizhny Novgorod in January 2022, and transferred her to pretrial detention in Chechnya. In the summer of 2023, she was sentenced to five and a half years in a low-security penal colony after being found guilty of fraud and assaulting a security guard during her transfer to Chechnya. The Chechen Supreme Court commuted the sentence to five years on appeal.
In a closing statement to the court, Musaeva said that she had not committed any crime, and asked not to be sent back to the penal colony where she served her first sentence and where the prison guard who accused her of assault still works, according to Crew Against Torture.
Musaeva would have been due for release from prison in March, but in November was presented with fresh charges for disrupting the penal colony’s activities. Her health has deteriorated while she has been in custody. She suffers from type-2 diabetes, hypertension and other diseases and has difficulty walking.
In May, Musaeva’s legal team requested her release from pretrial detention on medical grounds so that she could undergo an urgent medical examination and receive appropriate treatment. The Chechen Supreme Court refused the petition.