The rights project Free120 reported the death of the prisoner. The same date — September 27, 2026 — is confirmed in state registries, according to a check by Mediazona. The Support for Political Prisoners project, run by Memorial, also confirmed information about Khalikov's death.
Khalikov was detained in November 2019. In May 2021, the Central District Military Court sentenced him and another defendant, Ilfat Galimov, to 12 years in prison. They were found guilty of participating in a terrorist organization (Part 2 of Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code) and of inciting terrorist activity (Part 1.1 of Article 205.1 of the Criminal Code). Appeals and cassation left the sentence unchanged.
According to Memorial, Khalikov is considered a political prisoner: the terrorism charge was built, the rights defenders assert, "in the absence of the event or the elements of such crimes." In particular, the prosecution relied on the testimony of two witnesses whose names were changed. They stated that it "became clear" to them that Khalikov and Galimov had tried to induce them to join Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Khalikov's mother, Anfisa, said in an open letter published by OVD-Info in 2020 that her son was interested in Islam, attended a mosque, studied Arabic script and read the Quran in the original. He was also interested in various Islamic movements, including Hizb ut-Tahrir, about which he read online. Khalikov denied membership in the organization.
According to his mother, one of the episodes in the charge concerned a photograph from a 2014 meeting at which Khalikov appeared alongside alleged members of the organization. He said he had gone there after work at an acquaintance's request and ended up in the group photo by chance. Anfisa Khalikov also asserted that during a search of their home, security officers found books that had not been there before, and she believed the literature had been planted on her son.
In recent years Khalikov was held in Penal Colony No. 4 in the Penza region and sought a transfer closer to home — to the Chelyabinsk region or Bashkortostan. According to the rights defenders, the reasons were illness and the difficult financial situation of his elderly parents, for whom trips to visits were beyond their means. The Federal Penitentiary Service refused the transfer, and in May 2026 a court upheld that decision.
According to estimates by The Insider, since the start of 2026 at least ten political prisoners have died in Russian pretrial detention centers, prisons and colonies. A week before the news of Khalikov's death, the death of Igor Yakovenko became known — he died on October 8 in a Krasnodar pretrial detention center.