Ichkeria's government considering creating special tribunal for Kadyrov, Akhmat

The exile government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria is working on the possible creation of a special tribunal for Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov for creating the religious extremist unit Akhmat, which committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

Inal Sherip, a member of the exile government of Ichkeria, said this in a comment to Ukrinform.

"We are working on the possibility of creating a separate tribunal for Ramzan Kadyrov and his extremely radical religious sect Akhmat," the politician said.

The Ichkeria government-in-exile believes that the ideology espoused by the Akhmat special operations unit, justifying its participation in the war against Ukraine and the killing of Ukrainians, gives grounds to consider it a religious extremist sect that poses a threat to the peoples of the Caucasus, Europe and Ukraine.

"This religious sect committed crimes against humanity in Europe. Religious sectarianism takes root both in Chechnya and in the North Caucasus and worldwide. Therefore, the creation of a special tribunal for Kadyrov and Akhmat is very important not only for Chechnya and Ukraine," Sherip said.

According to him, a large group of about 1,000 religious managers has been created in Chechnya, many of them graduated from the University of Damascus in Syria.

"It is no secret for experts that almost all graduates of the Faculty of Sharia of the University of Damascus from post-Soviet countries are under the control of Russia's GRU [intelligence agency]. The Russian special services have long specialized in the religious topic. Therefore, it is important to identify all those involved in the creation of the Akhmat unit within Russia and beyond," he said.

He added that he had presented the idea of creating a special tribunal for Kadyrov at the expert level in the United States and it had also been discussed with members of the inter-faction group "For Decolonization and Dismantling of the Russian Empire" in Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada.

According to Sherip, consultations are ongoing regarding the mechanism for creating this tribunal, because there were no such precedents.

"If we manage to create a special tribunal for Kadyrov, classifying Akhmat as a religious extremist sectarian group that poses a threat, I am sure that we will destroy the structure they created and which today justifies the murders of the Ukrainian people," the politician said.

Akhmat is a special operations unit of the Russian National Guard, stationed in the Chechen Republic and commanded by Ramzan Kadyrov. The unit takes part in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian authorities suspect the service members and commander of the unit of their involvement in the murders of civilians in Ukraine.