Son of Killed Journalist Is Still Persecuted

On 1 February the investigators of Minsk Prosecutor’s Office with Uladzimir Chumachenka at the head tried to forcibly take Anton Filimonaw for stationary psychiatric expertise. Anton is the son of the journalist Veranika Charkasava, who was killed in October 2004.

The group of investigators suddenly burst into school #88 where 15-year-old Anton learns. They allowed him to phone home – that’s how the relatives found about it and ran to school to stop the investigators. The relatives are indignant at such actions of the investigation. They are sure that the nervous breakdown after the murder of his mother as a result of which Anton Filimonaw was hospitalized can be a consequence of the methods, used by the investigators of the prosecutor’s office.

On 31 January the journalist’s mother Dyiana Charkasava filed a letter to Prosecutor General of the Republic of Belarus Piatro Miklashevich where she expressed her own vision of the investigation and evaluation of its methods. She emphasized that though the investigators had no evidence of guilt of the son and the stepfather of the killed journalist in the murder these relatives were still suspects on the case. Dyiana Charkasava also wrote she feared of the possible falsifications during the investigations which could lead to punishment of innocent people and asked the prosecutor to prevent it.

According to the press service of Belarusian Association of Journalists