Fearing deportation to Russia, a native of Chechnya left Kyrgyzstan

Mansur Movlaev, a native of Chechnya, left Kyrgyzstan to avoid being deported to Chechnya, where he is in danger. He did this after the Bishkek City Court upheld his sentence in the case of illegal border crossing and ordered him to be deported to Russia, his lawyer Bakyt Avtandil told Kavkaz.Realii.

Movlaev’s location is not disclosed for security purposes, the defense attorney said. “He left the republic in order not to be deported. In what way, I do not know. It is possible to say that he single-handedly fulfilled the court’s decision and independently left the territory of Kyrgyzstan,” the lawyer said. The authorities did not report that Movlaev had left the country through any of the border crossings.

Earlier, Movlaev was sentenced to six months of imprisonment and deportation for illegally crossing the border of Kyrgyzstan. The sentence did not enter into force, as the defense appealed. Movlaev’s defense paradoxically insisted on the maximum punishment – two years of imprisonment, so that he would not be deported to Russia, where, according to him, extrajudicial punishment by Ramzan Kadyrov’s subordinates could await the convicted.

27-year-old Mansur Movlaev is a taekwondo master of sports. In 2018, he worked as an engineer at Chechenenergo. Some mass media, as well as Chechen oppositionists, reported that in 2020, Movlaev was sentenced to three years in prison for criticizing the authorities of the republic, but under which article, it is unknown – there is no corresponding decision on the courts’ website.

Movlaev was reportedly released on parole in 2022, but in August he was abducted again by officers of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Shalyna district of Chechnya. He was held in one of the secret prisons, but he managed to escape and illegally, without documents, get to Kyrgyzstan, where the persecuted man has been since last year, writes the website 24.kg. In Russia, Movlaev was declared a federal wanted person in the case of extremism.

• At the end of October, Movlaev, at a court session of the appellate instance, stated that he had been beaten in a pre-trial detention center, but could not finish his statement: the chairman of the judicial board interrupted him. His lawyer, Bakyt Avtandil, clarified that the complaint about torture was sent to the National Center for the Prevention of Torture in Kyrgyzstan.
• According to Chechen activists, in August, the Kadyrovs kidnapped all of Mansur Movlaev’s relatives who live in the village of Starye Atagi, and detained them in the Shalin District Police Department.