RFE/RL – Chechen Woman Buried In Armenia Months After Suspected ‘Honor Killing

Aishat Baymuradova, 23, was buried in the Armenian capital with state funding after her funeral was organized by a local nongovernmental organization, according to Armenia’s Investigative Committee. Her body had remained in Yerevan for months after no relatives came to collect it, despite repeated notifications sent to the Russian Federation. Baymuradova is survived by a young son, who reportedly remains with his father in Chechnya.

Baymuradova was found dead in a rented apartment on October 20, three days after she was reported missing. Human rights activists say the woman, who had fled the Russian Federation’s Chechen Republic to Armenia about a year earlier to escape domestic violence, was likely strangled.

Activists have described the killing as a suspected transnational “honor crime” and have pointed to possible involvement by individuals linked to Chechen security structures.

In the months following the killing, activists criticized Armenian law enforcement bodies for what they described as delays in the investigation and a failure to prevent suspects from leaving the country.

About four months after the incident, Armenian authorities identified two Russian citizens, Karina Iminova and Said-Hamzat Baysarov, as suspects in the murder and placed them on a wanted list.

Armenian and Russian human rights groups say the two suspects have ties to the regime of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Artur Sakunts, head of the Vanadzor-based Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly, said such links are visible in open sources. “Direct ties of the suspects in Aishat’s murder are evident at least through social media,” Sakunts told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

He also said that criminal cases previously initiated against the suspects in Russia were later suspended. According to Sakunts, Baysarov had been accused of financing the Islamic State terrorist organization, while Iminova had been accused of threatening to kill another person with a knife. Neither case resulted in accountability, he said.

Sakunts suggested that in such cases, criminal prosecution can be used as a mechanism to control or recruit individuals.

Earlier accounts by activists indicated that Baymuradova had been lured to the apartment shortly before her disappearance after meeting individuals she had contacted online, including a woman allegedly linked to people close to Kadyrov. Security camera footage reportedly showed several people entering the building that evening, including a Chechen man.

Activists have said the case may be the first known instance of a Chechen woman being killed abroad after fleeing domestic abuse. In many other “honor killing” cases, they say, women are tracked down and returned to Chechnya, where they are later killed.

Baymuradova was reportedly forced into marriage at 20 to a 29-year-old man she had met only a few times. Friends said she suffered physical abuse, was monitored by cameras inside her home, and was often locked indoors without access to her phone.

According to Armenian authorities, Baymuradova had not formally sought protection in Armenia or informed them or local nongovernmental organizations that she had fled Chechnya because of domestic violence.

The Chechen woman’s case echoes that of Fatima Zurabova, a 21-year-old woman from the Russian Federation’s Republic of Ingushetia who fled to Armenia in 2024 after alleged domestic abuse.

Zurabova’s relatives, including a senior police official, reportedly traveled to Yerevan to try to persuade her to return, but she later relocated to a third country.

—