Kremlin blamed for Chechen murders

The killing of a Chechen blogger in France has chilled dissidents in Europe who fear the attack was a message from the Kremlin.

The killing of a blogger in a hotel room in France has chilled ­Chechen dissidents in Europe who fear the attack was a message from the Kremlin.

Imran Aliyev was found dead on the floor of his room in Lille with stab wounds to his neck. A knife lay nearby.

Tumso Abdurakhmanov, a Chechen opposition figure living in Poland, said he had received a tip-off identifying the killer as a man from the Chechen town of Gudermes.

Aliyev, 44, had published controversial videos and made at least one laced with expletives about Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Kremlin leader of Chechnya, a ­region of Russia.

His death was the latest of several murders of Chechens critical of Mr Kadyrov, in Russia and abroad. A police source in Lille said the killing at the end of last month “bore all the hallmarks of having a political motive”.

The killer is said to have been a subscriber to Aliyev’s YouTube channel who had befriended him online. He travelled from Russia to the blogger’s home in Belgium, where he stayed for several days, claiming that he needed cancer treatment in Europe.

“The fact that a guest was ­responsible for this — a man who had eaten food prepared by Imran Aliyev’s wife — shows you just how despicable, to what baseness, these people are prepared to stoop,” Mr Abdurakhmanov, 34, said. “I’m not afraid but I know they would not baulk at killing my children.”

In 2016, Mr Kadyrov told Chechens living abroad: “We have ­information about every one of you, and we know who you are … We know where you are writing from, and you are in our hands.”

He has denied any involvement in murder of his critics.

Aliyev’s death came after the murder in Berlin of former separatist Zelimhkhan Khangoshvili .

Tens of thousands of Chechens have settled in Europe to escape persecution or the consequences of war.

The Times