Abdulmumin Gadzhiev taught advanced mathematics, reported on religious life for the independent Dagestani newspaper Chernovik and helped raise four sons. On June 14, 2019, security officers arrived at the family's apartment in Makhachkala early in the morning. Searches and detention interrupted their ordinary lives, setting off years of court hearings and separation. The authorities charged Gadzhiev with offences related to terrorist activity, linking the prosecution in part to his reporting about Islamic charity. He rejected the allegations. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience; Memorial recognised him as a political prisoner. He is now serving a sentence of 16 years and ten months, with Vladimir Prison No. 2, widely known as Vladimirsky Tsentral, listed as his last verified place of detention.
A mathematician who knew how to explain difficult ideas
Born in Dagestan in 1984, Gadzhiev graduated with honours from the mathematics faculty of Dagestan State University, went on to postgraduate study and began teaching at the university's economics faculty. His subjects included econometrics, mathematical modelling, advanced mathematics and computer science. His wife, Dana Sakiyeva, recalled former students who remembered him for making difficult material understandable, including students who had struggled in other classes.
As the young family grew, a university salary became increasingly difficult to live on. Around 2008, Gadzhiev joined Chernovik, one of Dagestan's leading independent newspapers, where he eventually became editor of its religion section. His writing explored Islamic ethics, family life, education, charity, economics and questions facing Muslim communities. He also continued to teach, translate from Arabic and advise on business and economic questions.
Speaking from detention in a 2020 interview with Novaya Gazeta, he described himself primarily as a teacher and commentator. He spoke of helping young people find a direction in life and resisted attempts to reduce his identity to labels imposed on Muslims in the North Caucasus. His professional outlook combined a mathematician's love of explanation with a journalist's concern for public discussion.
Covering religion in a tense region
Religious questions in Dagestan have long been entangled with state security policy and the authorities' treatment of Muslim communities. Gadzhiev worked in an area requiring knowledge of local debates, trust from readers and a willingness to discuss matters that could be politically sensitive. His articles covered Islamic finance and charitable initiatives, the upbringing of children and the distinction between ordinary religious practice and calls to violence.
According to Gadzhiev and colleagues, some of his work received recognition in competitions devoted to countering extremism. Gadzhiev said counterterrorism officials had once approached him about cooperation, which he declined in order to maintain his independence. These are recollections by the journalist and his colleagues, rather than independent assessments of the competitions. Their relevance is how sharply his relationship with the authorities changed once his professional writing became the subject of a criminal case.
A 2013 interview with Dagestani preacher Israil Ahmednabiev, also known as Abu Umar Sasitlinsky, later became central to the case. The conversation addressed charitable assistance for Syrian refugees. Years later, investigators treated the publication as a reason to accuse the reporter of assisting terrorism. His colleagues and international rights defenders viewed the prosecution as a warning about criminalising legitimate reporting on religion.
June 14, 2019: The morning the family was awakened
Armed officers entered the Gadzhiev family apartment at around six in the morning. According to Chernovik, the raid frightened his wife and children, officers forced the journalist to the floor and subsequently seized family phones and computers. The defence lawyer was not immediately allowed to see his client. Gadzhiev was taken for questioning and remained in custody.
In a statement published by his newspaper, he described his upbringing, university work, family and career, and rejected the suggestion that he was a criminal. His message was directed as much to readers as to investigators: he wanted to return to his wife, children and work.
The state alleged that Gadzhiev had participated in banned organisations and helped finance them, including by writing about Islamic charitable work. He denied the accusations. The proceedings also involved businessman Kemal Tambiyev and charitable-sector figure Abubakar Rizvanov. Tambiyev told a court he had been tortured into giving testimony and withdrew his earlier statements. Human rights groups documented his allegations of abuse and restrictions on the defendants' rights. Understanding the rights violations and their human consequences does not require FACTUM to reconstruct the state's entire criminal theory.
A prisoner of conscience, and a campaign of solidarity
Memorial recognised Gadzhiev as a political prisoner in 2019. That October, Amnesty International reviewed the available case materials, declared him a prisoner of conscience and demanded his immediate release. It connected the case directly to his journalism and described the accusations as fabricated. That is not an assumption by FACTUM; it is Amnesty International's documented assessment.
Colleagues, rights activists and residents of Makhachkala publicly supported him. Supporters held individual pickets and other demonstrations calling for his release. For Chernovik, defending Gadzhiev also meant defending the ability of a regional newspaper to report on a community's religious and social life without state intimidation.
The pressure extended to the newsroom. On October 2, 2019, officers raided Chernovik's offices and seized equipment. In November 2022, the newspaper suspended its print edition, reporting pressure on printers, distributors and advertisers. The publication described the problems as politically motivated pressure designed to drive it out of Dagestan's independent media landscape.
More than five years before the appeal
The trial began in Rostov-on-Don in 2021 and continued for years. Even from pretrial detention, Gadzhiev wrote about prison life, belief, books and his observations of other people. His writing circulated through the newspaper and social media. Remaining a writer was a way of staying connected to an audience from which he had been physically separated.
On September 12, 2023, the Southern District Military Court sentenced him to 17 years' imprisonment. Tambiyev received 17 years and six months, while Rizvanov was given 18 years. Gadzhiev's sentence required him to serve the first seven years in a prison facility before transfer to a penal colony. On November 1, 2024, a military appeal court reduced each sentence by two months. Gadzhiev's punishment became 16 years and ten months; Tambiyev's, 17 years and four months; and Rizvanov's, 17 years and ten months.
The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the verdict and includes Gadzhiev in its database of imprisoned journalists. Memorial continues to recognise him as a political prisoner. The existence of a Russian court judgment does not displace these independent rights assessments, or the impact of the proceedings on the journalist's ability to work and his family's ability to live together.
Four sons growing up without their father at home
When officers entered the family's apartment in 2019, the oldest of Gadzhiev's four sons was about eleven years old, and the youngest was eighteen months old. Dana Sakiyeva was left to support the children, continue her own work and arrange legal assistance, deliveries to detention facilities and trips to court hearings. In a 2023 interview given to the independent journalism cooperative Bereg and republished by Meduza, she described how friends had initially predicted her husband would be released in a few weeks or months. Instead, the separation lengthened into years.
She recalled being approached by strangers offering encouragement on public transport, in the street and at children's activities. Her sons heard people speaking respectfully of their father. The oldest attended the reading of the September 2023 verdict and at first misunderstood a shorter part of the sentence as the total punishment. Only afterwards did he learn that the combined term was seventeen years. Sakiyeva said she caught herself calculating how old the children would be when their father might finally return.
These experiences convey the impact of the prosecution far more directly than a detailed analysis of statutory charges. By October 2026 the family had already lived with more than seven years of separation. Details of their present private circumstances are not reliably documented, and FACTUM does not infer how their contact with Gadzhiev may have changed since the 2023 interviews.
Vladimirsky Tsentral: The latest confirmed location
In February 2025, Chernovik, OVD-Info and Memorial reported that Gadzhiev had been transferred from a detention centre in Grozny through Pyatigorsk for onward transportation to Vladimir Prison No. 2. The other defendants were sent to different regions: Tambiyev to Chelyabinsk and Rizvanov to Krasnoyarsk. The geographic separation further complicated family visits and direct support.
As of October 22, 2026, FACTUM's index of persecuted journalists and available rights-group records list Vladimirsky Tsentral as Gadzhiev's current facility. His FACTUM profile was last checked on October 18. No newer independently verified details of a transfer, health change, disciplinary punishment or court decision were found. Information about his condition in pretrial detention in 2024 should not be presented as a current medical assessment.
Correspondence details are available on his FACTUM profile; anyone sending a letter should check the latest address first. Gadzhiev's story is not merely that of a man given a severe prison sentence. It is about a teacher and journalist who helped readers understand their world, an independent paper pushed towards silence and four children who have spent years growing up apart from their father.