Journalist Dzmitry Zavadski Was Kidnapped in Belarus 21 Years Ago

We will not forget, we will not forgive!

Exactly 20 years ago, a Belarusian cameraman, an employee of the Russian Public Television (ORT, now Channel One), Dzmitry Zavadski, disappeared. He was 27 years old at the time of his disappearance.

From 1994 to 1996, Dzmitry Zavadski worked in the cameraman pool of Aliaksandr Lukashenka, then began working at the Russian Public Television. In the summer of 1997, together with ORT correspondent Pavel Sharamet, he was arrested and accused of “illegally crossing the Belarusian-Lithuanian border” during the filming of the report, he was conditionally sentenced to a year and a half in prison. From October 1999 to May 2000, Zavadski worked in Chechnya, where he filmed the film "The Chechen Diary" with Sharamet.

Early in the morning on July 7, 2000, Zavadski left home for the Minsk National Airport to meet Sharamet, who was flying from Moscow. Since then, no one has seen the operator. His car was found at the airport.

In 2002, the Minsk regional court found the group of a former soldier of the Almaz special forces unit, Valery Ihnatovich, who had met with him in Chechnya, guilty of kidnapping Zavadski. Ihnatovich, as well as Maksim Malik, who was found guilty of abduction, were sentenced to life imprisonment. Former cadet of the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Aliaksei Huz and unemployed Siarhei Savushkin, who were also suspects in this case, were eventually found guilty of other crimes and sentenced to 25 years in a maximum-security colony and 12 years in a maximum-security colony, respectively.

On November 27, 2003, the Frunzenski District Court of Minsk declared Zavadski dead, although his body was never found. In March 2004, the prosecutor's office suspended the investigation into the abduction of Zavadski "in connection with the failure to find the missing person." In 2005, the investigation was resumed, but it was again suspended in April 2006.

In January 2020, Zavadski's widow received an official response from the Investigative Committee refusing to resume the suspended preliminary investigation into the case of the kidnapped cameraman.

In the eyes of the public, the charges in the Zavadski case and the trial were fabricated in order to hush up the noise surrounding the abduction. The perpetrators who had become objectionable, who had previously committed other crimes by order of the authorities, but were not involved in the disappearance of Dzmitry Zavadski, were sent to jail.

In the early 2000s, documents were published, from which it followed that a death squad specially created for this had dealt with opposition politicians and public activists.

The requirement to reveal the truth about the disappearance of the journalist is contained in the resolutions of the UN Commission on Human Rights, the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe, and the OSCE. Ex-Minister of Internal Affairs Uladzimir Naumau, Lukashenka's adviser Viktar Sheiman, former Interior Minister Yury Sivakou, and ex-SOBR commander Dzmitry Paulichenka have been banned from entering the United States and the European Union because they are suspected of involvement in his disappearance and kidnapping in Belarus.

On December 17, 2019, Deutsche Welle published a sensational confession of the former SOBR fighter Yury Harauski.

In September 2019, Yury Harauski turned to the Russian editorial office of Deutsche Welle, stating that 20 years ago he participated in the abductions and murders of Belarusian oppositionists - opponents of Lukashenka. Harauski claims that, in 1999-2003, he was a fighter of the SOBR - a special rapid reaction unit of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus. According to Harauski, on orders from above, together with his colleagues, he kidnapped and killed ex-Minister of Internal Affairs of Belarus Yury Zakharanka, ex-head of the Central Election Commission Viktar Hanchar, and businessman Anatol Krasouski, who supported the Belarusian opposition.

In the spring and fall of 1999, these three people disappeared. The investigation into their disappearances in Belarus has not been completed. In 2004, the special rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Christos Pourgourides, having studied all the circumstances, came to the conclusion that Zakharanka, Hanchar, and Krasouski were kidnapped and killed by SOBR fighters under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Dzmitry Paulichenka with the knowledge of the country's leadership. This version is shared by human rights activists and relatives of the disappeared, but it has not yet been proven.

Yury Harauski, 41, fled Belarus to Europe, where he asked for political asylum. He showed DW the originals and copies of some of the documents supporting his claims.