Russian state prosecutors have requested an additional four-year prison sentence for Zarema Musaeva, the jailed mother of outspoken critics of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, the rights group Crew Against Torture said Thursday.
Musaeva, 55, is the mother of human rights activist Abubakar Yangulbaev and bloggers Ibragim and Baysangur Yangulbaev. She is currently serving a five-year prison sentence for alleged fraud and assault of a police officer.
In December, just three months before her expected parole date, a new criminal charge was pressed against her.
According to prosecutors, Musaeva, who suffers from diabetes, scratched the neck of a prison bailiff during a hospital visit. They claim she attacked the officer out of frustration with being shuttled between the prison where she is being held and a hospital where she receives medical treatment.
Musaeva denies the allegation. Her lawyer, Alexander Savin, has requested an acquittal, arguing that her guilt has not been proven and that the bailiff fabricated the incident.
According to Savin, inmates at the same prison as Musaeva said she had expressed satisfaction with the hospital and its doctors. He noted that his client had been receiving care at the hospital since at least 2012.
The next hearing in her case is scheduled for Aug. 5.
The European Court of Human Rights had earlier ordered Russia to pay damages to Musaeva and her family over her “arbitrary” arrest, which was widely seen as retribution for the political activism of her three sons, who are all vocal critics of Kadyrov.
Musaeva was violently detained in the western Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod and forcibly taken to Chechnya in Russia’s North Caucasus in January 2022.
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