In Chechnya, Belkisa Mintsaeva, Whose Ex-Husband Accused Her of Abducting Their Daughter, Has Been Detained and Is Being Held by Police

In Chechnya, Belkisa Mintsaeva, whose ex-husband accused her of abducting their daughter, has been detained and is being held by police — human rights activists

According to the human rights group “Marem,” Mintsaeva was forced through blackmail to fly to the republic, and she has now been in the Interior Ministry department for the Nadterechny district for more than two days without contact, even though the police have no grounds whatsoever to hold her.

In an appeal to the head of the Investigative Committee, Mintsaeva said that she lives in Novosibirsk, and that two years ago her former husband, Sulim Dilmukhanov, kidnapped their daughters when they were on vacation in Chechnya together with their grandmother.

She filed an application in Novosibirsk to determine the children’s place of residence. The court allowed the mother to take the older daughter (she is now 14), but left the younger one, who at the time was not yet nine, with the father. The proceedings continued.

On April 6, Mintsaeva went to Chechnya to see her younger daughter, and the girl said that she wanted to return to her mother and sister in Novosibirsk. Mintsaeva took her daughter and flew away. After arriving in Novosibirsk, she learned that her former husband had filed a kidnapping complaint against her and against an acquaintance of hers who had been with her when she picked up her daughter. According to Mintsaeva, the acquaintance has already been detained, while she herself and her relatives are receiving threatening calls from her former husband.

@meduzalive