France revokes citizenship of refugee from Chechnya

Khasanbek Turchaev, a native of Chechnya, who is serving his sentence in the case on participating in the war in Syria on the militants’ side, has been deprived of his French citizenship.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that in November 2019, in France, a court sentenced Khasanbek Turchaev to 10 years of imprisonment. According to the court’s information, Khasanbek Turchaev participated in hostilities in Syria, trained militants in rifle shooting and making explosives, and also served as an emir.

53-year-old Khasanbek Turchaev, who emigrated in 2002 and was granted the status of a political refugee, has been deprived of his French citizenship, the “Kavkaz.Realii”* reports.

The French newspaper “Le Parisien” reported that Khasanbek Turchaev, a son of the former Minister of Energy of Chechnya, worked at the Grozny police. He was arrested in 2015 in Moldova, complained that he was tortured there, and was then deported to France. Khasanbek Turchaev claimed that he did not go to Syria to fight, but, on the contrary, to convince his two brothers to return to Europe, but they perished in Syria. Khasanbek Turchaev also called the case a part of “a conspiracy conceived by the Russian intelligence services with the complicity of the French judicial system.”

On October 16, 2023, the French Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) announced that about sixty people, including natives of Northern Caucasus, would be expelled after an attack on a school in the city of Arras.

The “Caucasian Knot” has also reported that in November 2023, in France, a court sentenced Abdul Khakim Anaev, a native of Chechnya, to 10 years of imprisonment. The native of Chechnya was found guilty of inciting the terror act of Khamzat Azimov, who attacked passers-by with a knife in Paris, killing one and injuring four other persons.

*Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.