The imprisoned mother of a prominent critic of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is facing new criminal charges of disrupting the work of a prison, the human rights group Crew Against Torture said Monday.
Zarema Musaeva, the mother of activist Abubakar Yangulbaev and the wife of a retired federal judge, is serving a five-year prison sentence for fraud and assault on a police officer. Musaeva, who suffers from chronic diabetes, was hospitalized last month with what her lawyer said was “critical” blood sugar.
The Crew Against Torture said Musaeva, 55, faces up to five additional years in prison on charges of disrupting the work of a prison. Musaeva has denied the charges.
An investigator visited Musaeva at a prison in the Chechen town of Argun to question her about allegedly attacking a prison bailiff who accompanied her during daily trips to the hospital, according to the NGO.
Investigators notified her lawyer Alexander Savin of the charges, but the rights group said he does not know the details of the new case yet.
The European Court of Human Rights had earlier ordered Russia to pay damages to Musaeva and her family over her “arbitrary” arrest, which was widely seen as retribution for the political activism of her three sons — Abubakar, Baysangur, and Ibragim Yangulbaev — who are all vocal critics of Kadyrov.
Musaeva was violently detained in the western Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod and forcibly taken to Chechnya in Russia’s North Caucasus in January 2022.
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