The Sweden-based Chechen dissident Tumso Abdurakhmanov is said to have been murdered
The Sweden-based dissident Chechen blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov has been murdered, according to the Chechen opposition.
On Monday, 1Adat, a Telegram channel and social movement, reported they had confirmed through sources in Chechnya and Europe that Abdurakhmanov had been shot. They said his brother, Mohmad Abdurakhmanov, had been taken into protective custody. In a video address on Monday, Anzor Maskhadov, a former representative of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and an associate of Abdurakhmanov, also confirmed his death.
The Swedish police told OC Media they were aware of the reports but declined to comment at this time.
Reports of Abdurakhmanov’s murder began to emerge late last week and on Saturday the Chechen human rights organization Vayfond said it had lost all contact with both Abdurakhmanov and his brother. Abdurakhmanov has not been published all on his Telegram channel since November 30.
Abdurakhmanov had been an outspoken critic of the Russian authorities in Chechnya including the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov personally. He earlier survived an attempted murder in February 2020, when a man broke into his home in Sweden and attacked him with a hammer. Abdurakhmanov managed to subdue his attacker and escaped with minor injuries. Mohmad Abdurakhmanov was too reportedly the target of an assassination attempt in Germany last year.
In March 2019, the Speaker of the Chechen Parliament, Magomed Daudov declared a blood feud against Tumso Abdurakhmanov.
Russian “state terrorism”
Critics of the Russian authorities, especially those in Chechnya, have often been assassinated abroad.
Tumso Abdurakhmanov fled Russia in 2015, but like many political refugees based in Europe who remained critical of the Chechen and Russian authorities, he became the target of attacks with evidence pointing to the Kadyrov regime in Chechnya.
In 2020, another Chechen government critic, Mamikhan Umarov, was shot dead near Vienna, Austria. His unidentified killer, reportedly also from Chechnya, was arrested and convicted for murder in a local court last summer.
In 2019, a Chechen-Georgian asylum seeker in Germany, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, was murdered in Berlin. His killer, Vadim Krasikov, was sentenced to life in prison. Chairman of the case ruled that the Russian government had ordered the assassination and accused Russia of “state terrorism”.
Critics of Kadyrov’s regime in exile have also repeatedly claimed that their relatives have been persecuted by the Chechen authorities as a form of retaliation against them or to pressure them into silence.