Chechen blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov, a vocal critic of Ramzan Kadyrov based in Sweden, has been reported dead nearly a week after he disappeared.
“Tumso was shot at night by a group of people,” the Chechen opposition movement 1ADAT said in a social media post on Monday, citing its “network of informants” in Europe and Chechnya.
However, Swedish authorities have not yet commented on reports of Abdurakhmanov’s murder.
As noted by the media, Abdurakhmanov’s allies said that he and his brother have not responded to calls and messages since last Thursday. He was allegedly shot dead that night.
Meanwhile, 1ADAT claimed that Abdurakhmanov’s brother, Muhammad, was “hiding from the intelligence services”.
Abdurakhmanov, 36, survived a hammer attack in Sweden in 2020, which he claimed was ordered from inside Russia.
A Swedish court sentenced a male suspect in that attack to 10 years in prison and a female suspect to eight years.
Swedish media reported that Abdurakhmanov had been living in hiding in Sweden since 2019 after being denied asylum in Poland.
He had been living in exile since 2015 to escape what he described as threats to his life in Chechnya, a southern Russian region ruled by Kremlin loyalist Kadyrov.
Kadyrov, who has been accused of widespread rights violations, has labeled opposition members “enemies of the people”.
Abdurakhmanov regularly posted videos highly critical of Kadyrov on his YouTube channel, which has nearly half a million subscribers.
