Accord­ing to the infor­ma­tion giv­en by Siarhey Bal­ashau, assis­tant attor­ney, the inves­ti­ga­tion has been sus­pend­ed «due to the absence of indictable sus­pects.»

“The oper­a­tive work con­tin­ues, the results of search­es are exam­ined at oper­a­tional meet­ings.” He wouldn’t tell when was the last time that such a meet­ing was held, say­ing it’s a secret of inves­ti­ga­tion. “There is no real evi­dence to sus­pect any­one,” he said to BAJ press ser­vice.

At noon on Thurs­day Veranika’s rel­a­tives, friends and col­leagues gath­er at the BAJ office at Kam­samol­skaya 7 to pro­ceed fur­ther to the church­yard in Kalodzishchy, where Verani­ka was buried.

About Verani­ka Charkasa­va

Verani­ka Charkasa­va was born on Jan­u­ary 12, 1959 in Min­sk. She worked for var­i­ous inde­pen­dent oppo­si­tion news­pa­pers — «BDG» (in the 90’s), «Belorusskaya Gaze­ta» (1995–2003) and, final­ly, in 2003–2004 for «Sal­i­dar­naść» (Sol­i­dar­i­ty) news­pa­per.

She spe­cial­ized in inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism and wrote about social issues, includ­ing arti­cles about reli­gious sects and gyp­sy com­mu­ni­ties in Belarus, but also she pub­lished sev­er­al arti­cles about ille­gal arms trade between Ali­axan­dr Lukashenka’s Belarus and Sad­dam Hus­sein’s Iraq. She vis­it­ed Iraq in 2002 as mem­ber of group of jour­nal­ists invit­ed to the coun­try by some Belarus busi­ness­man who had part­ners in Iraq.

The Case

The mur­der­er, who inflict­ed over 20 stab wounds, has nev­er been found. The killer did not take any mon­ey or valu­ables but left a trace of blood in her address book.

Veranika’s 15 year-old son Anton Fil­imonau and her chron­i­cal­ly ill step­fa­ther Uladz­imir Mialesh­ka were named two main sus­pects in the inves­ti­ga­tion of «domes­tic vio­lence». The jour­nal­ist’s fam­i­ly, espe­cial­ly Anton, became sub­ject of a sys­tem­at­ic and cru­el harass­ment. The teenag­er endured months of hos­tile inter­ro­ga­tions, was destroyed moral­ly and, as a result, suf­fered a ner­vous break­down. His father had to take him out of the coun­try to avoid a «psy­chi­atric exam­i­na­tion» at a closed facil­i­ty ordered by the pros­e­cu­tors. Six months after the mur­der, Anton and Uladz­imir’s sus­pect sta­tus was lift­ed.  The offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tion was sus­pend­ed in Decem­ber 2005, reopened in Feb­ru­ary 2006, and sus­pend­ed again on March 14, 2006, cit­ing “lack of indictable sus­pects”. All fur­ther com­ments of the inves­tiga­tive bod­ies repeat­ed the same rea­son for the case sus­pen­sion. In Octo­ber 17, 2006 the chief inves­ti­ga­tor of the Min­sk Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office, Siarhey Ivanou, said in an inter­view with the news­pa­per «Zvyaz­da» («Star») that “even though the inves­ti­ga­tion into Veroni­ka Cherkaso­va’s mur­der had been sus­pend­ed due to inabil­i­ty to iden­ti­fy the per­pe­tra­tors, the oper­a­tive work on the case con­tin­ues. In my opin­ion, this case isn’t hope­less, and its inves­ti­ga­tion can be brought to a log­i­cal end,» he said. Ivanou alleged that the mur­der was not a care­ful­ly planned or pre­med­i­tat­ed one, because «the killer used a knife that he found in his vic­tim’s kitchen. Had the per­pe­tra­tor orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed to mur­der Cherkaso­va, he would have brought his own weapon instead of rely­ing on an acci­den­tal­ly found knife.»

In the mean­while on April 11, 2006 Anton was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to 2,5 years of prison for mon­ey forgery. Because of his age, the jail term is deferred by 2 years. His «accom­plices» received sim­i­lar con­vic­tions with 2 years in jail. Remark­ably, Anton’s neigh­bor, whose com­put­er equip­ment was used for the alleged forgery, appeared in the case only as a wit­ness. Anton’s fam­i­ly described him as an insti­ga­tor and, pos­si­bly, a provo­ca­teur in what might have been a set-up.

On Octo­ber 8, 2008 Uladz­imir Mialesh­ka was sum­moned for ques­tion­ing, and Veranika’s par­ents’ house was searched. The inves­ti­ga­tors want­ed to know Anton Filimonau’s where­abouts. Diane Charkasa­va, her moth­er, said that Anton had left the coun­try. “It was obvi­ous that the police treat­ed Anton as the “main sus­pect”. For four years, instead of look­ing for the real mur­der­er, they have been prepar­ing grounds for arrest­ing Anton. We lost the daugh­ter, and then the grand­son. In such sit­u­a­tion it’s impos­si­ble to stay in con­tact nor­mal­ly. All inter­ro­ga­tions and search­es look like mere mock­ery. We can’t give any new infor­ma­tion,” she added.

An arti­cle in Belorusskaya Delo­vaya Gaze­ta The Fear As a Plau­si­ble Motive, Or Who Mur­dered Verani­ka Charkasa­va? by Siarhey Sat­suk presents an inde­pen­dent analy­sis of avail­able evi­dence. It states that all evi­dence indi­cate that this was a pro­fes­sion­al assas­si­na­tion.   It demon­strates that the jour­nal­ist was killed imme­di­ate­ly and her body was muti­lat­ed and blood was sprayed around after­wards as if to max­i­mize the hor­rif­ic appear­ance of the crime scene.  It lists evi­dence the pros­e­cu­tors chose to ignore in their attempt to impli­cate fam­i­ly mem­bers: the elec­tri­cal fuse box out­side the apart­ment was tem­pered with, the exper­tise of blood stain pat­terns on the walls showed that it was sprayed after Verani­ka had already been dead, etc. The arti­cle also reveals that sev­er­al months before her death Verani­ka resumed con­tacts with an Infobank exec­u­tive whom she met two years ear­li­er dur­ing her trip to Iraq in the midst of a scan­dal around the alleged weapon sales by Belarus to Sad­dam Hus­sein. It is known that Verani­ka was gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion on Infobank which han­dled Belarus-Iraq finances.

In April 2006 the web­site http://www.Veranikacherkasova.org/ appeared devot­ed to Veranika’s case.

In Octo­ber 2006 a large pub­lic cam­paign was launched when more than 50.000 jour­nal­ists from all over the world unit­ed to encour­age the police to do their best to inves­ti­gate the case and achieve jus­tice. Still, the case is being sus­pend­ed.

On Sep­tem­ber 8, 2005 the book Red on White was pre­sent­ed, a col­lec­tion of Verani­ka Charkasava’s best arti­cles and essays pub­lished in var­i­ous Russ­ian and Belaru­sian mag­a­zines and news­pa­pers in 1992–2004.

Veronica Cherkasova: Murder Mystery