PSYCHODELICS

INVESTIGATIONS

In the issue of October 25 last year, Novaya wrote about the murder of the famous Belarusian journalist Veronika Cherkasova. Recall: Veronica was brutally murdered in her own apartment - she was inflicted 45 stab wounds. This tragedy shocked Belarus,...

In the issue of October 25 last year, Novaya wrote about the murder of the famous Belarusian journalist Veronika Cherkasova. Recall: Veronica was brutally murdered in her own apartment - she was inflicted 45 stab wounds. This tragedy shocked Belarus, and relatives, colleagues and readers were waiting for a quick and fair investigation. But even more shocking was the accusation of the murder of Veronika's 14-year-old son Anton Filimonov - simply for the lack of other candidates. True, the charge against the boy was later dropped. And last week, events began to develop again completely unexpectedly ...

The court of the Central District of Minsk rejected the complaint of Anatoly Kulikov, the lawyer of Anton Filimonov, the son of journalist Veronika Cherkasova, who was brutally murdered on October 20 last year. In his complaint, the lawyer challenged the decision of the prosecutor's office to send Anton for a compulsory psychiatric examination. The trial lasted 40 minutes and upheld the decision of the prosecutor's office.

The court decision even contains the following passage: “On January 31, 2005, by the decision of the first deputy prosecutor of Minsk, Filimonov A.D. placed in a state medical institution for examination. That is, the judge did not even bother to find out that Anton Filimonov was not placed in any institution, but was safely taken to Moscow by his own father, Russian journalist Dmitry Filimonov. The touch is very characteristic both for the past trial and for the investigation itself in the case of the murder of Veronika Cherkasova ...

The decision to conduct a forensic psychiatric examination of Anton was indeed signed on 31 January. And on February 1, an investigator from the Minsk prosecutor's office Vladimir Chumachenko and two employees of the regional police department came to Anton's school during lessons to forcibly take him to a hospital. Anton was saved by teachers - they closed him in the teacher's room and called his grandmother, Diana Cherkasova. Diana Timofeevna and her husband immediately rushed to the school. The boy was actually recaptured from the "capture group". That same evening he was secretly taken to Moscow to his father.

By the way, Anton Filimonov has already managed to visit the psychiatric hospital - after many hours of interrogation, which took place with the most cynical violations of laws. Anton was interrogated without the presence of adults, which is prohibited, and much longer than the time allotted by law for interrogations of minors. As a result, with severe depression, the boy ended up in the hospital. With all suspicion removed from him.

Why was her own son the only suspect in the murder of an opposition journalist? Everything is very simple: the unspoken directive to write off the murder as a "household" and that, God forbid, no politics, was executed brilliantly. And was it by chance that the case of the murder of Veronika was given to the investigator Chumachenko - the same one who safely "buried" the case of the kidnapping of opposition politicians Viktor Gonchar and Anatoly Krasovsky? It was hardly an accident.

Chumachenko did not have to investigate anything: it turned out that Veronica was killed at the very time when Anton had a physical education lesson. And he was released from physical education. And why, in fact, spend time and effort searching for the killer, if a completely slender version of itself floats into the hands? True, Veronica's colleagues did a better job: they were not too lazy to do in 45 minutes - the time of the lesson - the way from school to Veronica's apartment and back. Nothing, of course, came together. Since Anton did not live with his mother, but with his grandmother, he went to school near his grandmother's house. And from there to Veronica - the path is not the closest.

In his free time from bullying Anton, the investigator called all her colleagues for interrogation. But for some reason, he strenuously brushed aside the Iraqi version of her murder, which the journalists offered him to develop. And this version has every right to exist.

Shortly before the start of the war in Iraq, the Belarusian Infobank, which serves all trade operations with the Arab world, including the arms trade, paid for a trip to Iraq for a group of Belarusian journalists. Among them was Veronika Cherkasova. According to some reports, shortly before her death, she resumed contacts with an Infobank employee. However, the investigation does not want to hear about Iraq and Infobank.

There is another trace, which may turn out to be false, or may be true. In the late eighties - early nineties, Veronika worked in the youth editorial office of the Belarusian television. At that time, three employees of the “youth team” were brutally killed in their own apartments, including the well-known Belarusian journalist Alexander Chulanov, with whom Veronika was friends. The killers were never found.

It would seem that the investigators were simply obliged to return to those old murders. But why, if there is a defenseless sick teenager?

Now Anton Filimonov is in Moscow with his father. But Moscow is an unreliable place. There are plenty of their own Vladimir Chumachenko. And the decision on compulsory examination is still in force. This means that the murder of Veronika Cherkasova continues.