Chechen dissident Tumso Abdurakhmanov 'shot dead in Sweden'

A prominent Chechen blogger and critic of Ramzan Kadyrov has been murdered in Sweden, activists and colleagues say.

Tumso Abdurakhmanov was gunned down by a group of men late last week according to a Chechen opposition network.  

"Very sadly the rumours of his death turned out to be true," the 1ADAT group said on Telegram on Monday morning, citing its own network of informers.

"Tumso was shot at night by a group of people. The details of the murder are currently being investigated."

The network said it could not publish further details because of safety fears for its staff and their sources.

Colleagues of Mr Abdurakhmanov confirmed the report to Radio Free Europe’s Russian Service, saying he had been killed on the night of Thursday, December 1. 

Vayfond, a Chechen human rights organisation based in Sweden, said on Saturday that Mr Abdurakhmanov had stopped communicating, but that it had no evidence to support rumours of his death.

Mr Abdurakhmanov, 36, left Russia in 2015 after receiving threats from an official close to Mr Kadyrov, the republic’s hardline ruler. He was eventually granted asylum in Sweden.

In 2020, he survived a hammer attack at his home in Gävle, about 100 miles north of Stockholm.

The male attacker and a female accomplice were jailed for 10 years and eight years respectively in 2021.

A Swedish broadcaster published documents from a European intelligence service that concluded Chechen and Russian security services were behind that attack. Sweden’s own security service said the attack was planned in Moscow.  

Georgia - CHRISTOPH SOEDER/DPA/AFP/Getty Images© Provided by The Telegraph

His killing follows a string of assassinations of Mr Kadyrov’s critics and enemies overseas.

In August 2019, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian citizen of Chechen origin, was shot dead in central Berlin. His killer was later identified as Vadim Krasikov, a member of Russia’s elite Vympel special operations unit.

In 2017, Amina Viktorivna Okueva, a female Chechen fighter opposed to Kadyrov and fighting for Ukraine, was murdered outside Kyiv.