23:40, 18 February 2025

Maria Smelaya fails to find her child in Chechnya

Maria Smelaya, a Krasnodar resident, who is seeking custody over her child in court, has arrived at the address in Chechnya where her son is registered, but the house was empty.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the court had postponed for 2.5 months the hearing on the case of custody of Maria Smelaya's child, during which time she intends to meet with her son in Grozny. During her trip to Chechnya, Maria wants to receive confirmation that her son does not live at the address where her ex-husband had registered him. The information about the child's place of registration must be provided for the court's decision on custody.

On May 7, 2024, Maria Smelaya was placed in a shelter for women who have suffered from domestic violence. Earlier, she asked human rights defenders to protect her from her husband, who, according to her version, used to beat her up, took her to the forest and threatened to kill her. The violence began shortly after their trip to her husband's relatives in Grozny and their marriage.

Maria Smelaya has come to Chechnya, where her husband, a native of Chechnya, Sh., registered her son, but she failed to find the child there, the “Caucasus without Mother” project has reported. The address that Sh. provided as the child's residence turned out to be the address of his brother's house, and the owners were not there, the above project has informed in its Telegram channel.

Last June, Maria complained that officials from the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) were passing on her complaint about her husband's kidnapping of their son to each other and would not investigate the case.

On June 4, 2024, it turned out that Sh., Maria Smelaya's husband, had another wife. She also filed a complaint with human rights defenders that he was beating her and their children up.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on February 18, 2025 at 10:22 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Source: Caucasian Knot