20:55, 31 December 2025

Kazakhstan denied asylum to Mansur Movlaev

Mansur Movlaev. Screenshot from https://www.instagram.com/p/DQjHlKJDCEh/ (Meta, the company that owns the social network, is banned in Russia).

The Asylum Review Commission in Kazakhstan has refused to grant Mansur Movlaev refugee status.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," the extradition process for Chechen native Mansur Movlaev to Russia has been halted pending Kazakhstan's review of his asylum request. The ECHR does not have jurisdiction over Kazakhstan, and the country's authorities will decide for themselves whether to comply with the UN Human Rights Committee's decisions regarding the extradition of Chechen native Mansur Movlaev to Russia. The deadline for reviewing Mansur Movlaev's asylum request in Kazakhstan expires on August 19, but a hearing on the matter has not yet been scheduled, his lawyer stated. The delay in the trial raises concerns for Movlaev's fate, commentators noted. The defense asked the Kazakh authorities to cease any actions aimed at Movlaev's extradition and to extend his asylum seeker certificate.

In May, Mansur Movlaev was detained in Kazakhstan on a search warrant from the Shali District Department of Internal Affairs in Chechnya. The court placed him under extradition arrest for 40 days pending Russia's official extradition request. On May 21, Movlaev was granted asylum seeker status. In an appeal to Chechens and residents of Kazakhstan, he asked for help to prevent his extradition to Russia. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office assured its Kazakh counterparts of the absence of political motives for Mansur Movlaev's persecution, torture, or cruel treatment in the event of his extradition.

The commission denied Mansur Movlaev refugee status in the Republic of Kazakhstan, according to Movlaev's letter, which was published on the Instagram* page "Free Mansur Movlaev."

"By refusing to grant me asylum, you have signed my death warrant—through torture in Russia. Of course, no one will openly execute me in Russia (although that's not certain). Perhaps, even after being tortured, I will say on camera that I'm supposedly fine, and then, some time later, I will die under mysterious circumstances, hang myself, have a heart attack, or something else will be invented. Know that you, precisely you, could have been the ones who could have saved my life by the will of the Almighty, but "Instead, you will be accomplices to my murder," the letter reads.

He recalled the years of deportation of the Vainakhs. "You will write a new history in the history of Chechnya and Kazakhstan, the opposite of what happened in 1944, when the Kazakhs saved the Chechens," Movlaev stated.

Murat Adam, one of Movlaev's lawyers, reported on the meeting of the commission for reviewing applications for asylum in the Republic of Kazakhstan for activists from the Russian Federation, scheduled for December 25, on his Telegram channel.

While studying at university, Mansur Movlaev helped the Chechen opposition movement "Adat" (an organization recognized as extremist, its activities are banned in Russia) with information about abducted people. In 2020, Movlaev was sentenced in Russia to two years in prison on charges of drug trafficking. He told his lawyers that investigators gave him a "choice" of two charges: weapons possession or drug possession, and he was facing prison either way. In 2022, Movlaev was released on parole but was detained by security forces in Chechnya and held in an illegal prison. He escaped from there and, in January 2023, was able to illegally enter Kyrgyzstan after being framed for financing extremism.

In August 2023, security forces in Kyrgyzstan detained Movlaev, who was wanted in Russia for financing extremist activity. On October 4, 2023, a court in Bishkek sentenced Movlaev to six months in prison and subsequent deportation from the country. In October 2024, Mansur Movlaev reported the kidnapping of his relatives by security forces in Chechnya.

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Translated automatically via Google translate from https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/419583