Tumso Abdurakhmanov, a prominent Chechen blogger and a critic of Ramzan Kadyrov, contacted human rights defenders yesterday, coming into the spotlight for the first time since disappearing in early December, and posted a video on his YouTube channel titled ‘The Comeback’.
In the video, Abdurakhmanov speaks about the death of Abdul-Kerim Edilov who he calls “the nanny” of three Kadyrov’s sons.
“When I stopped posting my videos, people in Kadyrov’s circle made up their minds that I was dead and killed for some reason. Abdul-Kerim was so overwhelmed with joy that he even posted a picture of me, claiming that I had been ‘disposed of’. That is so ironic, you see. Abdul-Kerim has turned out to be the one to have been ‘disposed of’.
And I am alive and well,” Abdurakhmanov said.
He also mentioned that he was “missing” his blogger activities, but did not elaborate on the reasons for his disappearance.
Vayfond, a human rights organisation, informed Novaya-Europe yesterday that Abdurakhmanov had contacted the Chechen diaspora in Sweden, informing them he was alive. The human rights group is unaware of his current whereabouts.
Tumso Abdurakhmanov and his brother disappeared in Sweden on 3 December 2022. Radio Free Europe claimed that he had been shot dead. Laurent Lafleur of a court in Munich revealed on 10 December that Abdurakhmanov was in fact alive and preparing to testify in a trial against a man who was allegedly plotting the murder of Tumso’s brother.
