Why Has There Been No Progress in Sheremet’s Murder Case?

22 July 2018 18:11

After news of journalist Pavel Sheremet’s murder broke, the journalistic community, along with his friends, followers and family, all hoped for a quick and effective investigation. This was not the case and two years on from the fatal car bomb attack, the official investigation is still no closer to proving who killed the prominent Ukrainian—Belarusian journalist.

Sevgil Musaieva, Editor of Ukrainska Pravda where Sheremet worked, has doubts over the overall efficiency of investigation.

Photo credit: HROMADSKE

“No one was fired, the names of investigators were not released, the mistakes were made and no one was punished for it,” she tells Hromadske. “And so I question, is this negligence really the result on unprofessionalism?”

Early on, after numerous questionings, Musaieva and her colleagues personally noticed that the investigation was losing momentum. “We were asked the same questions, maybe they found some clues but they weren’t effective and could be invalidated quickly,” she recalls.

The spokespersons of both the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the National Police attributed this inefficacy to the fact that, at the time of the investigation, police reform had only just begun. According to Musaieva, this assertion was made to shift the blame onto the previous head of the Ukraine’s National Police Khatiya Dekanoidze.

Photo credit: HROMADSKE

What’s more, even after Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and Prosecutor General Lutsenko acknowledged these flaws in the investigation, nothing was done to further the case’s progress, Musaieva notes.

The Ukrayinska Pravda editor also believes that Sheremet’s Russian citizenship has proven to be yet another obstacle for the investigation. This is of particular importance as Sheremet was in Moscow a month before his death.

Photo credit: HROMADSKE

“The investigation wanted to receive some kind of information about his phone calls, but unfortunately, investigators from the Russian Federation aren’t answering the questions of Ukrainian law enforcement,” Musaieva adds.