Rumors of Tumso’s assassination began to circulate at the end of last week, as we reported. At that time, the only certain information was that both Ramzan Kadyrov’s personal enemy and his brother Muhammad had stopped communicating, and no information about their fate had come from their families. And now, last night, the Telegram channel 1Adat wrote that according to the results of their investigation the murder of Tumso has been confirmed. Based on this, in the morning all media, including Muslim bloggers, began to write about it as a confirmed fact.
First of all, it should be noted that there was nothing strange about Tumso’s murder itself. He had been threatened with death before, there had been an attempt on his life, and in general we live in a reality where hundreds of people die every day in war, most of whom never thought they would have to take up a weapon. Therefore, people who consciously fight dangerous enemies should be prepared for death.
However, in Europe we have already seen several murders of Chechen political emigrants and enemies of the Russian special services and Ramzan Kadyrov, and therefore these rumors about Tumso’s murder did not seem reliable. Why not? Because, as is often the case in such situations, there were no pictures of the crime scene, no messages from relatives, and no funeral.
So let’s look carefully at the message from 1Adat, on which all claims about Tumso’s murder are now based:
«Regarding the recent events concerning Tumso Abdurakhmanov, as difficult as it may be for us to admit, unfortunately the rumors of his death have turned out to be true. We have been conducting our internal investigation into Tumso’s murder for several days. At first we could not believe what had happened, but at this stage, as Allah wills, we have enough information to confirm his death and that his brother Muhammad was hidden by the special services. For our own safety and for the sake of our informants, we cannot publish our material, which Allah’s will has given us through our network of informants in Europe and Chechnya. Tumso was shot at night by a group of individuals and the details of his murder are still being clarified.
We are deeply saddened by this news and send our condolences to Tumso Abdurakhmanov’s family. May Allah forgive his sins. Dala gech doyla, Dal iman a, sobar a loyla chur charna. Verily, we belong to Allah, and it is to Him that we shall return. Quran 2:156.»
So, as we can see, it mentions material obtained through a network of informants from Europe and Chechnya, which cannot be published for our own safety and the safety of the informants.
We do not intend to question the reliability or sincerity of 1Adat, but the realities of the information society and information warfare are such that any of us can make mistakes and be misled, including by disinformation, including so-called deepfakes.
Therefore, until there is official confirmation from Tumso’s relatives and his burial, we will hold on to the hope that he is alive. But in any case, we all belong to Allah, and to Him we will return.