On December 8, the director of ChGTRK “Grozny” Chingiz Akhmadov accused the head of the government of unrecognized Ichkeria Akhmed Zakayev of the murder of Chechen opposition blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov. The next day, information appeared that the blogger was alive and testifying in Munich in court in the case of an attempt on the life of his younger brother Mohammad Abdurakhmanov.
The first unconfirmed reports of Tumso's death appeared on the Internet on December 1. On December 5, the 1ADAT telegram channel (recognized as extremist in Russia) announced that, according to their data, Tumso Abdurakhmanov was killed, and his brother Muhammad was being hidden by the police for security reasons. At the same time, there was no confirmation of this information from their relatives.
Chingiz Akhmadov, who blamed Zakaev for the murder of Tumso, did not provide any evidence for his accusation. But he connected the “order” with Abdurakhmanov’s statements about the illegitimacy of the ChRI government, headed by Zakayev. “The old actor, in pursuit of phantom power, decided to go to great lengths, probably involving hired killers to eliminate his opponents,” Akhmadov said in his Telegram channel.
In his opinion, after the creation of the political party “Voice of Chechnya,” which Abdurakhmanov announced in November, he became not just an opponent, but also a competitor of Zakayev.
However, Tumso Abdurakhmanov is not primarily known as a critic of Zakayev - for many years he opposed Ramzan Kadyrov and his entourage. Tumso’s activities irritated the Chechen authorities so much that a year ago, Kadyrov’s men, as Abdurakhmanov himself claimed, kidnapped and held 11 of his relatives for a long time, thus trying to put pressure on the blogger.
In February 2020, an attempt was made on Tumso, who lives in Sweden, but he managed to neutralize the attacker. During the investigation, the would-be killer Ruslan Mamaev said that he acted on the orders of “people from Grozny”, who offered 50 thousand euros for this murder.
Akhmed Zakaev did not comment on Akhmadov’s words. But on December 6, in an interview with the Kyiv TV channel, he noted that Kadyrov and his entourage perceive Abdurakhmanov’s activities very painfully and Kadyrov’s people could “liquidate” him. The prime minister of Ichkeria in exile recalled that it was because of a conflict with a relative of the head of Chechnya that Abdurakhmanov left Russia.
On December 9, Swedish Radio, citing a representative of the Higher Regional Court in Munich, reported that Tumso Abdurakhmanov was alive and under the protection of Swedish police. He intends to testify in a Munich court about the assassination attempt on his younger brother Mohammad.
In the dock in Munich is Chechen Walid D. According to the German federal prosecutor's office, he was preparing the murder of human rights activist and critic of the Chechen authorities Mohammad Abdurakhmanov on behalf of his cousin Ramzan Kadyrov. The main witness for the prosecution is another Chechen, Tamerlan A. According to the investigation, he was assigned the role of perpetrator of the crime, but he chose to warn the alleged victim.
“The reason for the preparation of my murder was the active position of my brother Tumso and my rejection of the pro-Russian regime in Chechnya. I am sure that the order to kill me was given by the highest leadership of Chechnya. The Russian government has already tried to kill Tumso, who is in Sweden. Murders of Kadyrov's critics were committed in France, Austria, and Germany.
I am afraid of the next possible attacks on me and my brother. But we will not allow ourselves to be intimidated. I expect that during the trial the court will take into account the political background of this case,” said Mohammad Abdurakhmanov.
The Abdurakhmanov brothers left Chechnya in 2015. Tumso claimed that they had to leave because of persecution from Ramzan Kadyrov’s relative, Islam Kadyrov, who then served as head of the administration of the head of Chechnya.