On January 20, exactly a year after Zarema Musaeva was detained, her son, Chechen activist and blogger Abubakar Yangulbaev recorded a video message in which he invited the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, to exchange himself for his mother.
“He has proven that he is a terrorist and acts using terrorist methods,” Yangulbaev says about Kadyrov in a video message published on his Telegram channel. - He calls for starting a nuclear war in Ukraine, killing on ethnic grounds. He kidnaps relatives of his political opponents, critics and social activists. My mother is in captivity, but she should not be there, should not be held responsible for the actions of her sons. If you are a man and the personification of maximum masculinity in this country, you must let her go. But if in Russia and Chechnya it is not the laws that apply, but the rules of war, then let’s exchange her for me. Don’t touch women, take me instead.”
Below the video is the text: “Choose for yourself who will become a neutral guarantor of the exchange. I believed that attracting public attention to the abduction of my mother Zarema Musaeva could save her. The war wrote everything off. In Russia there is no longer any room left for law, human rights and freedoms. Everything in the country is dead. But my mother is not to blame for anything. Let her go in exchange for me! And you can torture me, mock me, kill me, resurrect me, and all over again at least every day.”
There was no reaction from the Chechen authorities to this appeal.
Zarema Musaeva, the wife of ex-judge of the Supreme Court of Chechnya Saydi Yangulbaeva, the mother of former lawyer of the Committee against Torture Abubakar Yangulbaev and the author of the 1ADAT telegram channel Ibragim Yangulbaev, is accused of assault on a police officer and fraud. Human rights activists at Memorial, which was liquidated in Russia, recognized her as a political prisoner and stated that “the persecution of Musaeva cannot be viewed as anything other than taking her hostage for the purpose of returning and punishing the men of the family for reasons of personal revenge.” Ramzan Kadyrov accused the Yangulbayev family of organizing a terrorist network and said that a place awaits them “in prison or underground.” Ibragim Yangulbaev has been put on the federal wanted list for justifying terrorism; Rosfinmonitoring has included him in the register of extremists and terrorists.
Musaeva was detained by police on January 20, 2022 in her apartment in Nizhny Novgorod and taken to Grozny. Since then she has been in jail. The court refused to place her under house arrest, despite her diabetes and related illnesses. Her husband and children are hiding abroad.
On June 20, Musaeva’s case was transferred to court. Several times an ambulance was called for her during court hearings. Two judges recused themselves, but the defense's request to change territorial jurisdiction was rejected.
On February 2, the court once again extended the arrest period for Zarema Musaeva – now until May 12. The court hearing was adjourned to conduct a new examination of the injuries allegedly inflicted on police officer Musayeva.
On February 9, the “Team against Torture” (the new name of the Committee against Torture) reported that the Nizhny Novgorod prosecutor’s office recognized the actions of the head of the investigative department for the region, who redirected reports of the crime in the case of Zarema Musaeva to Chechnya, as unfounded. Human rights activists have been demanding an investigation and punishment of those responsible for her illegal transfer to Grozny for more than a year.
Meanwhile, Musaeva’s condition is deteriorating. According to her lawyer, due to her increasing insulin dependence, she requires more and more medications. The lawyer fears that maintenance therapy is not effective and the woman urgently needs to undergo a medical examination.