Unidentified people attempted to get into the apartment of a murdered journalist’s relatives

This morning two unidentified persons tried to get into the apartment, where the mother and stepfather of the assassinated journalist Veranika Charkasava.

It was reported by the press-service of the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

As the stepfather of Veranika Charkasava Uladzimir Mialeshka said, the unknown people first kept insistently ringing the doorbell and pulled the doorknob of the apartment’s door. This went on for around an hour.  

“The relatives of Veranika didn’t dare to open the door or to talk to the visitors. But they assumed that this is connected to the murder’s anniversary approaching”, - it is said in the message.

“If there were no cases like that before, we could talk of some coincidence. But we are very well familiar with police visits after 11 p.m. and at dawn… We are two old ill people. I can’t see the point of pressuring and intimidating us”, - the mother of the journalist Diana Charkasava said. Last visit of police happened in October 2008, also before the murder’s anniversary. That time they searched the apartment having a sanction from the prosecutor of the Pervomaiski district. The policemen were looking for “weapon, drugs, stolen objects”, but didn’t take anything in the end.

On 17 October the BAJ addressed the Investigation Committee for information about the case of Charkasava. The cases of such kind became the competence of the Committee at the beginning of 2012. In the department of investigations of crime against persons and public safety of the Committee they said that they would respond only to a written request. The organization submitted such a request.

The journalist of the non-state “Salidarnasts” newspaper Veranika Charkasava was murdered on 20 October 2004 in her apartment in Minsk. The body with multiple stabbings was found by her 15-year old son Anton Filimonau and stepfather Uladzimir Mialeshka. They had been the suspects for some time. The crime is not solved yet.