22:51, 2 May 2018

Ramzan Kadyrov unhappy with severe sentences to Russian women in Iraq

Ramzan Kadyrov. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Sinyakov

Life sentences to Russian women-citizens have been appealed against, the Russian Consulate in Iraq has reported. Severe sentence to women accused in Iraq of ties to the "Islamic State" (IS) have acquired a mass character, Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya, has stated.

On April 17, Dagestan-born Alis Ismailova and Elvira Magomedkhanova were sentenced to life imprisonment in Iraq on charges of involvement in the IS, a terrorist grouping banned in Russia. In January, one of these women wrote to her mother's that she had fallen into slavery.

Many of these women have young children; and Russian authorities hope to return these children to Russia with the assistance of Iraqi authorities, Kadyrov wrote in his Telegram, not excluding that verdicts to some women are unjustified.

Many convicts claimed that they had been forcibly brought to Iraq from Turkey by their husbands.

Most of the 19 Russian women convicted in Iraq are from Chechnya and Dagestan, said Kheda Saratova, a member of the Human Rights Council under the head of Chechnya, not ruling out that the women will serve their terms in the homeland.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.