Зарема Мусаева
Brief description
Zarema Musayeva is the wife of retired Chechen Supreme Court judge Said Yangulbayev and mother of human rights activist and lawyer Abubakar Yangulbayev and dissident blogger and activist Ibragim Yangulbayev.
She is currently a political prisoner, detained as retaliation for her children’s activities.
Criminal prosecution
In January 2022, Musayeva was abducted in Nizhniy Novgorod and forcibly transported to Chechnya. She was subsequently charged with fraud and assaulting a police officer. The charges were widely seen as politically motivated retribution for the activities of her sons. In July 2023, a Chechen court sentenced her to five and a half years in prison.
In 2024, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Russian authorities had failed to protect her family in the face of threats from the Chechen regime; that Musayeva had been ill-treated by the police; and that her detention was arbitrary and retaliation against her family (European Court of Human Rights, 2024).
Despite winning the case at the ECHR, Musayeva remained in prison. In August 2025, the Shali City Court sentenced to a further three years 11 months in prison for allegedly assaulting a prison officer (The Moscow Times, 2025).
Known associates
Person 1 | Person 2 | Details | Type of relationship | ⛲ Media sources | 📜 Academic sources | Core relationship |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Zarema Musayeva is the mother of Abubakar Yangulbayev. | Familial relationship | |||||
Zarema Musayeva is the mother of Ibragim Yangulbayev. | Familial relationship | |||||
Saidi Yangulbayev and Zarema Musayeva are married. | Familial relationship |
