There can be no sexual abuse in Ingushetia Russia’s military forcibly enlisted a suspect in a four-year-old girl’s murder to conceal an Ingush community’s shame — The Insider

The authorities in Russia’s Republic of Ingushetia covered up a child sexual abuse case that led to the death of a four-year-old girl named Samira Mutsolgova, and the only known suspect evaded prosecution by enlisting with the military, journalists at The Insider reported on Monday. After Samira’s death, her mother was briefly jailed, but police released her after she recorded a video faulting her daughter’s doctors. Community members have allegedly helped conceal Samira’s death, too, even as other children remain in the same household. Meduza summarizes The Insider’s report on Ingushetia’s coverup.

According to The Insider, social taboos in Ingushetia about acknowledging sexual violence have made it more palatable for the local authorities and many in the general public to accept a fabricated medical malpractice story over the truth. Regional officials reportedly buried Samira Mutsolgova’s case to avoid bringing “shame” on themselves and also because of “signals from Moscow” that the Kremlin is concerned about the competence of the republic’s Child Protective Services director, Zarema Chakhkieva, whose agency has failed to prevent numerous abuse cases. (Chakhkieva is also a relative of Ingushetia Governor Mahmud-Ali Kalimatov).

Two sources told The Insider that one of the men who lived at Samira’s home during the time she was abused was Bashir Vedzizhev, 46. Police reportedly identified multiple suspects when investigating the girl’s death, but local Telegram channels named only Vedzizhev, who was arrested in May 2023. However, in February 2024, after swearing his innocence with a hand atop a copy of the Quran, Vedzizhev was released from custody. It later emerged that Vedzizhev was forced to enlist with the military (on a “voluntary-compulsory” basis), and he even tried briefly to hide from military recruiters afterward.

Samira Mutsolgova’s attorney, Magomed Bekov, told the Telegram channel NeMoskva that he knows nothing about Vedzizhev’s apparent enlistment. Courts in Moscow (where the girl’s case is being heard, for some reason) have consistently denied Bekov access to investigators’ files on Samira’s death.

According to The Insider, there were two attacks against Vedzizhev’s home after his arrest (unknown individuals threw a grenade into his courtyard and fired shots into the air), prompting community elders to speak out against vigilante justice.

When Samira seemed like she would survive her injuries and illnesses, Ingushetia’s officials remarked publicly on her condition. She was admitted unconscious to the hospital in April 2023, a month after local police added her family to their juvenile affairs division’s watchlist. Doctors diagnosed her with closed head trauma, exhaustion, convulsive syndrome, retinal hemorrhage in both eyes, bilateral pneumonia, anemia, and severe bruising. The four-year-old was so badly shaken that doctors had to perform her kidney ultrasound while she stood because she refused to lie on her stomach.

On May 9, 2023, the head of Ingushetia visited Samira in the hospital and said afterward that she’d regained consciousness and was recovering. Six days later, however, Samira died, officially due to a “severe blood disease.”

Despite ample medical evidence that Samira endured severe beatings and showed clear signs of sexual abuse, officials never acknowledged that she’d been sexually abused. State investigators accused journalists of spreading “false information,” even when Imam Khamzat Chumakov urged the authorities not to conceal what had happened. The local authorities also ignored subsequent reports that four other children in Samira’s household had been hospitalized after apparent sexual abuse.

The police reportedly suspected Samira’s mother and grandmother of involvement in her beatings. Even before the girl’s death, the family was designated as “disadvantaged” and placed under state supervision. The adults in the household are notorious boozers, and the small children in the family do not attend preschool. However, police quickly released the grandmother for lack of evidence linking her to Samira’s abuse. The girl’s mother went free after she recorded a video blaming her daughter’s doctors for her death.

Russia’s Federal Investigative Committee has taken control of Samira’s case and launched an audit of the region’s Child Protective Services, reports The Insider. Meanwhile, Ingushetia Governor Mahmud-Ali Kalimatov and former Children’s Rights Commissioner Anna Kuznetsova have assured the public that they’re monitoring the investigation into Samira’s death.