The Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform has called on Ukraine ‘to undertake a fresh investigation’ into the 2016 murder in Kyiv of Belarusian journalist and former dissident Pavel Sheremet. The call comes four months after leaked tapes pointed to earlier plans by the Belarusian KGB to kill Sheremet and 500 days after the arrests were announced of three Ukrainians with no transparent motive during a high-profile press briefing attended by Ukraine’s president, prosecutor general, and interior minister. Although the authenticity of tapes has been confirmed, there is nothing to suggest that the Ukrainian authorities have seriously investigated this lead. Instead, the trial is taking place, very slowly, of the three Ukrainians: well-known musician and military PR officer Andriy Antonenko; pediatric surgeon Yulia Kuzmenko and Yana Duhar, military nurse. Antonenko, who has young children, has been in detention all of this time, while Kuzmenko, who also has a young son, was in custody for seven months and is now under house arrest. Rather than investigating new leads, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has used at least two appearances on television to try to influence public opinion in favor of the police version first presented at the press briefing on Dec. 12, 2012.
Ukraine-European Union Relations
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Halya Coynash: Council of Europe’s body urges to re-investigate Sheremet killing
A man lights candles next to a memorial for Pavel Sheremet, a journalist who was killed by a car bomb in Kyiv on July 20, 2020, on the fourth anniversary of his death.
