14th anniversary of Dzmitry Zavadski's abduction
The journalist of the ORT TVchannel disappeared without a trace in Minsk on 7 July 2000. His relatives still do not know, where his grave is.
Early in the morning on 7 July 2000 Dzmitry Zavadski, who at the time worked for the Russian ORT TV channel (now – First Channel), went to the national airport Minsk. Since then no one saw Dzmitry Zavadski. His car was found at the airport.
In 2002 Minsk region court found guilty of abducting Zavadski a group of a former Almaz special-ops unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Its members Valer Ihnatovich and Maksim Malik were sentenced for life. Alaksei Huz was sentenced to 25 years in prison, Siarhei Savushkin – to 12 years in high security prison. None of them pled guilty.
In March 2004 the state prosecutor’s office suspended the case of Zavadski’s abduction “due to not having found the disappeared person”. In 2005 the investigation was resumed, but suspended again in a year.
Neither Dzmitry’s colleagues, nor his family believe the official version – that Zavadski was kidnapped and murdered by the officers of the special-ops Almaz unit for revenge reasons. We would remind that in the interview the journalist spoke of Belarusians, who fought on the Chechen side.
In the eyes of the public the prosecution and trial in the Zavadski case were fabricated with the purpose of hushing up the buzzing around the abduction. Behind bars were sent the executors, who fell out of favor and who on the orders of the authorities had previously committed other crimes, not related to Dzmitry Zavadski’s disappearance.
The demand to reveal the truth about the disappearance of the journalist is there in the resolutions of the UN Human Rights Committee, the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe and OSCE. Former Minister of Internal Affairs Uladzimir Navumau, Lukashenka’s advisor Viktar Sheiman, former head of the MIA Jury Sivakou and former commander a special riot police unit Dzmitry Paulichenka are banned from entering the USA and European Union countries, because they are suspected of being involved in his disappearance as well as the abduction of people in Belarus.
