Chechen dissident blogger is reported killed in Sweden
Chechen blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov, a vocal critic of Chechnya’s strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov based in Sweden, has been reported dead nearly a week after he disappeared.
“Tumso was shot at night by a group of people,” the Chechen opposition movement 1ADAT said in a social media post on Monday, referring to its “network of informants” in Europe and Chechnya.
Swedish authorities have not yet commented on the reports of Abdurakhmanov’s killing.
Abdurakhmanov’s allies said he and his brother have not returned calls and messages since Thursday.
He is supposed to have been shot dead that night, said Radio Svoboda, a Russian-language affiliate of the American news organization Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), quotes its staff.
1ADAT claimed that Abdurakhmanov’s brother Muhammed had been “hidden away by the intelligence services”.
Abdurakhmanov, 36, survived a hammer attack in Sweden in 2020 that he claimed was ordered from inside Russia.
A Swedish court convicted a man suspected of the attack to 10 years in prison and a female suspect to eight years.
Swedish media reported that Abdurakhmanov has been living in hiding in Sweden since 2019 after being denied asylum in Poland.
He had been living in exile since 2015 to escape what he had described as threats to his life in Chechnya, a southern Russian region ruled by Kremlin loyalist Kadyrov.
Kadyrov, who has been accused of widespread rights abuses, has branded opposition members “enemies of the people”.
Abdurakhmanov regularly posted videos highly critical of Kadyrov on his YouTube channel, which has nearly half a million subscribers.