Chechen blogger Abdurakhmanov killed in Sweden

nv.ua: Abdurakhmanov’s colleagues told RFE/RL’s Russian Service that he had been shot dead on the night of Dec. 1-2, confirming earlier reports of his killing.

The Chechen opposition 1ADAT movement on Dec. 5 also confirmed that Abdurakhmanov had been killed and that his brother, Mukhammad Abdurakhmanov, was under the protection of Swedish security forces.

“We’ve been conducting and are conducting our internal investigation into Tumso’s murder for several days,” the movement said in a Telegram messenger post.

“At first, we couldn’t believe what happened, but currently we have enough information that confirms his death, and his brother, Mukhammad, is under the protection of security forces. Tumso was shot by a group of people at night.”

Abdurakhmanov had already survived one assassination attempt by Kadyrov’s men.

In February 2020, a killer broke into Abdurakhmanov’s apartment at night and attacked Abdurakhmanov with a hammer, but was neutralized and later sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Swedish court.

Who is Tumso Abdurakhmanov?

While living in Grozny, the capital city of Chechnya, Abdurakhmanov worked as Deputy Director of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Electrosvyaz.

In 2015, he had a conflict with a top official of the Chechen government and a relative of Chechen warlord, Islam Kadyrov.

After the incident, Abdurakhmanov fled first to Georgia, and then to Poland.

Following his departure, Russia opened a criminal case against him for “participation in illegal armed formations.” In turn, Kadyrov accused him of ties to the Islamic State terrorist organization.

Abdurakhmanov became the most prominent Chechen blogger in exile. More than 250,000 people have subscribed to his YouTube channel.

At least three Chechens who had criticized Kadyrov have been killed in EU countries: Umar Israilov was killed in Austria, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Germany, and Imran Aliyev (Mansur Stary) in France.

Later Abdurakhmanov released information about the latter’s murder, saying that the victim was a resident of the Gudermes district, who worked for a high-ranking Chechen official.