On 4 February, various media outlets reported that the Chechen blogger Imran Aliyev, was found dead with multiple stab wounds in a hotel in Lille, France. Aliyev was known for criticising the Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov. 

Unnamed sources claimed that the 44-year-old blogger, who resided in Belgium and was known online as Mansur Stary (Old Mansur), was found dead on 30 January in his hotel room in Lille. According to the sources, Aliyev arrived from Belgium a day earlier with another man, “who presumably had the same nationality.”

The prosecutor's office in Lille said no one had been detained so far in the investigation but declined to provide further details.

Tumso Abdurakhmanov, another Chechen video blogger who has received death threats for his criticisms of Kadyrov, implicated a fellow Chechen native with alleged ties to high-level Chechen officials in Aliyev’s death. “According to my information, the criminal is now back in Chechnya and will be rewarded there,” Abdurakhmanov said on his YouTube page. 

Following Aliyev’s death, protest actions of Chechen residents were held at Russian Embassies in Austria and Germany. The picketers demanded from that law enforcement agencies of these countries find and punish those responsible for the blogger's murder, to stop the practice of deporting Chechen refugees back to Chechnya and ensure the safety of other Chechen refugees.