On August 21, the Pervomaisky District Court of Bishkek chose a preventive measure for Chechen activist Mansur Movlaev, detained by employees of the State Committee for National Security (SCNS) of Kyrgyzstan. He will be held in pretrial detention until October 21.
Movlaev was detained on August 20 in the Issyk-Kul region as part of "counter-terrorism activities to counter sleeper cells of an international terrorist organization." According to Kyrgyz special services, he is a "follower of a radical ideology" and "on the instructions of emissaries of international terrorist organizations in Syria, he was part of a sleeper cell of previously convicted followers of the terrorist underground on the territory of the Kyrgyz Republic." According to the SCNS, members of this cell "were planning to commit a series of armed robberies against wealthy citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic for the purpose of subsequently financing international terrorist organizations." True, no evidence was provided to support these accusations.
According to the State Committee for National Security, Movlaev has been on the international wanted list since August 2022; in January 2023, he illegally crossed the state border of Kyrgyzstan and used a fake Russian passport in the country.
Immediately after Movlaev's arrest on August 20, Chechen activists brothers Ibragim and Baysangur Yangulbaev released a video about Movlaev on the 1ADAT movement's YouTube channel. They said that he had criticized the Chechen authorities.
Mansur Movlaev was born in 1995 in the Chechen village of Starye Atagi, graduated from the Grozny Oil University, and worked as an engineer at JSC Chechenenergo. Master of Sports, champion of the Chechen Republic in taekwondo, winner of all-Russian and international tournaments.
In 2020, he was sentenced to 3 years in prison on charges of drug trafficking. According to the Russian website VC.RU, the case was fabricated, the real reason for Movlaev's persecution was his "political and religious considerations" and "criticism of the Chechen authorities." There is no exact information about where exactly he made his criticism.
Movlaev was released on parole in 2022, but was soon reportedly kidnapped by officers of the Shali District Department of Internal Affairs and placed in a secret prison. He managed to escape and illegally, without documents, leave the country. It was after his escape that he was put on the federal and then international wanted list for extremism.
As the Yangulbaevs said, Movlaev arrived in Kazakhstan from Russia, from there moved to Kyrgyzstan and planned to fly from Manas Airport to Turkey, and then move to Europe and ask for asylum.
1ADAT fears that if Movlaev is deported from Kyrgyzstan and returned to Chechnya, he will be dealt with there. He stated the same thing to the staff of the National Center for the Prevention of Torture of Kyrgyzstan, who visited him in the pre-trial detention center.