Chechen blogger Tumso, who campaigned against Kadyrov, killed in Sweden

Chechen blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov killed

A Chechen video blogger and outspoken critic of Kadyrov, Tumso Abdurakhmanov, who had been living in exile in Sweden, has been killed. This is confirmed by his associates, the “Caucasian Knot” writes, although Swedish law enforcement have not yet commented.

Abdurakhmanov disappeared on December 1, and rumors of his death began circulating immediately on social networks. The Kavkaz Front Telegram channel, which supports Russian aggression in Ukraine, posted a video showing the body of a man who looks like Tumso Abdurakhmanov.

However, representatives of the Vayfond association and the Assembly of Chechens of Europe stated that these reports did not look credible.

Now Abdurakhmanov’s associates say that the blogger was shot on the night of December 1-2. His brother Muhammad is being sheltered by Swedish intelligence, which is why he is also “unexpectedly and without explanation no longer available to all contacts,” the Chechen human rights association Vayfond, also based in Sweden, said.

Tumso Abdurakhmanov received political refugee status in Sweden in October 2021. On February 26, 2020, a man broke into his apartment in Stockholm and tried to kill him with a hammer. Tumso fought with and managed to disarm him. Later, the attacker, Ruslan Mamaev, insisted in court that he did not plan to kill the blogger, but was on orders from those who sent him from Grozny to Sweden.

A court in Sweden accused Russian citizens Ruslan Mamaev and Elmira Shapiaeva of involvement in the attack, and sentenced them to ten and eight years in prison, respectively.

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Who is Tumso Abdurakhmanov

Tumso Abdurakhmanov, born in 1985, worked for the state company Elektrosvyaz in Grozny, first as an engineer and later as deputy director. After a conflict with a close relative of the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, he was persecuted, sent his family abroad and then fled Russia himself.

In Chechnya a criminal case was initiated against Abdurakhmanov for participation in illegal armed groups. Chechen authorities claimed that he fought in Syria on a side banned in Russia. The vlogger claimed that the case against him was fabricated and he had never been to Syria. In 2019 the speaker of the Chechen parliament, Magomed Daudov, announced that the case against the blogger had been dropped.

Tumso’s father, Umalt Abdurakhmanov, was once sentenced to death for fighting the Soviet regime, which was then commuted to a long prison sentence. He worked in the government of Ichkeria, which declared independence from Russia, and was wounded in the first Chechen war while fighting Russian troops.

Since fleeing Russia, Tumso Abdurakhmanov had regularly and harshly criticized the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, and his entourage on his Youtube channel and has received hundreds of thousands of views.

Abdurakhmanov called the Kadyrovites to a public dialogue. In a debate with them, many loud statements were made. In July 2017, Abdurakhmanov’s videos on the Abu-Saddam Shishani channel began to garner hundreds of thousands of views.

Vlogs with high-ranking officials from Chechnya became especially popular. On several of them he is talking on the phone with Magomed Daudov, an influential speaker of parliament in Chechnya, nicknamed “Lord”. The most popular video on his channel today – more than 5.5 million views – is called “A Conversation with Kadyrov’s Lord.”

But in March 2019 the situation changed, says the “Caucasian Knot”. Daudov declared Tumso Abdurakhmanov a blood enemy because criticism of Akhmat Kadyrov — father of Ramzan Kadyrov, the first ruler of Chechnya after the end of the independence wars of the republic.

Daudov explained that this was not a threat, “but (we) do not allow anything to be said. Poland [where the vlogger was at the time] is not such a distant place. And there is not a single distant place, in all available places we will call him account, with the permission of the Almighty,” Daudov said.

Chechen blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov killed