On August 29, Rosfinmonitoring added lawyer, human rights activist, former employee of the "Committee Against Torture" Abubakar Yangulbaev, son of Zarema Musayeva, to the list of terrorists and extremists. He is a defendant in two criminal cases - on organizing extremist activity and on calls for terrorism.
Abubakar was born in 1992, grew up in Chechnya in the family of judge Saidi Yangulbaev, and graduated from the law department of the Chechen State University in 2014. In November 2015, he, his father and brother Ibrahim were taken to the residence of Ramzan Kadyrov, where they were brutally beaten. The reason, as Abubakar said, was Ibrahim's blogging activity - he created a group on VKontakte, where he published articles about corruption, kidnappings and other lawlessness committed in Chechnya. After an "explanatory conversation," Abubakar and his father were released, and Ibrahim was sent to a secret prison for six months. Abubakar contacted the "Committee Against Torture," which helped the family evacuate from Grozny.
After that, Abubakar began working at the checkpoint, first as a volunteer, then as a lawyer. In particular, he represented the interests of the parents of the Gasanguseinov brothers - Dagestani shepherds killed in 2016 by security forces who mistook them for militants. He also defended Musa Aliyev in a torture case and achieved a trial for the Khasavyurt police officers who beat up local resident Yulduz Kurashova. In 2021, together with opposition blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov, he published a video about the kidnappings in Chechnya of relatives of those who criticize Kadyrov and his associates. Soon, Abubakar was detained as a witness in a criminal case on the justification of terrorism, and his apartment in Pyatigorsk was searched. Abubakar managed to go abroad, and his brother Ibrahim, the creator of the opposition channel 1ADAT, had left Russia even earlier. Unable to capture the brothers, security forces from Chechnya came to their parents' rented apartment in Nizhny Novgorod and detained their mother, Zarema Musayeva. The persecution of the family began in Chechnya - Ramzan Kadyrov said: "This family will either end up in prison or underground." Other officials posted threats against them on social networks, portraits of the Yangulbaevs were burned at rallies, and relatives were forced to publicly disown them. In February 2023, on the anniversary of Zarema Musayeva's arrest, Abubakar Yangulbaev offered himself to the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, in exchange for his sick mother, but there was no response.
In July, Abubakar Yangulbaev reported that a case had been opened against him under Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Organization of the activities of an extremist organization"). The human rights activist suggested that the reason was the videos on the YouTube channel 1ADAT, although he himself denies any connection with the channel's activities. "The scandals they are inflating are immoral to me and, in my opinion, contradict what they themselves are fighting for. But some journalists, even independent ones, do not share our views," he told the publication "Kavkaz.Realii".
In August, a case was opened against Yangulbaev under the article on calls for terrorism (Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). According to him, the reason was his post last year, in which he described the terrorist attack in which Akhmat Kadyrov died, and wished the same death on his son Ramzan Kadyrov: "TNT will explode just like it did on May 9, 2004." The post was later deleted.
On August 23, the Ministry of Internal Affairs put Abubakar Yangulbaev on the federal wanted list without specifying the article he is charged with. Meanwhile, four of his relatives living in Chechnya were forcibly sent to the military operation zone in Ukraine.
