The Shali City Court has handed down a sentence of three years and eleven months in a penal colony to Zarema Musayeva, mother of Chechen opposition activists Abubakar and Ibragim Yangulbayev. She was convicted under Part 2 of Article 321 of Russia's Criminal Code for allegedly disrupting prison operations, as reported by the Team Against Torture.
Prosecutors had initially sought a four-year prison term. Investigators claimed Musayeva assaulted a Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) officer by scratching his neck, though no witnesses corroborated this allegation. In her final statement, Musayeva maintained her innocence and pleaded not to be sent back to the same penal colony where she was previously held—and where her accuser worked. Her eventual place of imprisonment remains unclear.
Musayeva, wife of former Chechen Supreme Court judge Saydi Yangulbayev, was forcibly taken from Nizhny Novgorod by Chechen authorities in 2022. In summer 2023, a Grozny court convicted her of fraud and assaulting law enforcement officers, sentencing her to five and a half years—later reduced to four years and nine months. Her scheduled release in March 2025 was disrupted when new charges of prison disorder were filed last November.
Her health has severely declined in detention. Diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, atherosclerotic cardiosclerosis, hypertension, and other conditions, she struggles with mobility due to chronic pain and has suffered multiple hypertensive crises, sometimes leading to unconsciousness.