Seda Suleimanova “voluntarily” returned to Chechnya

The prosecutor’s office of St. Petersburg has completed an investigation into the possible abduction of 26-year-old Sedy Suleymanova, a native of Chechnya. The department said that the girl voluntarily went to Grozny for questioning, and then of her own free will stayed with her family. This was reported by the IC SOS crisis group with reference to the department’s official response.

At the same time, the document does not mention the fact of Suleimanova’s detention by law enforcement officers from Chechnya in August 2023, human rights activists clarified.

The prosecutor’s office confirmed that there is no evidence of Suleimanova’s involvement in the theft of the 150,000-ruble jewel, on the basis of which she was released for questioning. At the same time, the inspection, as the prosecutors claim, showed that no “restraining measures or procedural coercion, including detention and prosecution” were allegedly applied to Suleimanova.

Human rights activists said that they intend to challenge the position of the prosecutor’s office in court. In addition, they submitted two statements to the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor’s Office about the possible murder of the girl.

Earlier, SC SOS reported with reference to two sources in Chechnya that Seda Suleymanova could have been killed by relatives.

Seda Suleimanova left Chechnya, fearing an “honor” murder. In August 2023, with the support of law enforcement officers from the republic, she was kidnapped from her apartment in St. Petersburg and taken to Grozny.

In September, the Commissioner for Human Rights in Chechnya, Mansur Soltaev, published a video of a meeting with Suleymanova, on which she does not say a word; since then, there has been no new information about the girl.

• Suleymanova’s fiancé, Stanislav Kudryavtsev, previously converted to Islam, trying to obtain security guarantees for a trip to Chechnya and a meeting with the bride. These requests were unsuccessful.
• On February 1, a friend of the abducted native of Chechnya, Lena Patyaeva, held a picket at the St. Petersburg prosecutor’s office with the poster “Is Seda Suleimanova alive? No one has seen her for 150 days.” The activist was detained and taken to the police, an administrative report was made against her. In an interview with the website Kavkaz.Realii, Patyaeva talked about Suleymanova’s life in St. Petersburg after running away from her family.
• Those fleeing violence in the North Caucasus often face persecution from relatives. Employees of law enforcement agencies detain them – the reason is usually knowingly false accusations of crimes, after which relatives take them back by force.