Anti-Kadyrov Chechen blogger says target of hammer attack

A blogger from Russia's mainly Muslim region of Chechnya critical of its strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov said Thursday he had fended off an attacker armed with a hammer while at home in exile in Europe.

Tumso Abdurakhmanov posted a video showing the attacker, whom he had apparently overpowered, covered in blood. He also brandished the hammer that he said the assailant wanted to kill him with.

The Sweden-based Chechen rights group Vayfond described the attack as an "assassination attempt".

Abdurakhmanov, currently in Poland, has lived in exile since 2015 after receiving what he describes as threats to his life from Chechnya.

His YouTube video blog critical of Kadyrov has some 75,000 subscribers.

He gained greater international prominence earlier this year when he said that the murder of another Chechen blogger, Imran Aliev -- known as Mansur Stariy -- in the French city of Lille in late January was an assassination carried out by another Chechen whom he named.

"Who sent you? Where did you come from?" Abdurakhmanov repeatedly asked the attacker in the video.

The man said he had flown from Moscow to attack him. "They gave me your address," he said, adding: "They are holding my mother."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it would be up to Polish law enforcement agencies to investigate the attack on Abdurakhmanov but said: "I do not think it is a very important event for the Russian agenda."