Firefighters rushed to extinguish flames that engulfed the auto that Belarusian journalist Pavel Sheremet was driving shortly after the vehicle exploded in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
Advertisement
Pavel Sheremet died on Tuesday in Kiev when the auto he was driving to work exploded in an attack that has stunned the country and reminded it of the turbulent 1990s that saw the rise of organised crime networks entwined with political leaders. The auto belonged to his partner and Ukrayinska Pravda owner Olena Prytula, who was not in the vehicle at the time.
The editor of Ukrainska Pravda Sevgil Musaieva-Borovyk told AFP he thought Sheremet was killed for his “professional activity”. Sheremet was driving at about 7:45 a.m. on July 20 to the office of the Ukrayinska Pravda news website when the red sedan blew up.
The International Press Institute (IPI) today strongly condemned the killing of a prominent journalist in a vehicle bombing in downtown Kiev this morning in what Ukrainian authorities have preliminarily called a “premeditated murder”.
Pavel Sheremet, 44, was a Belarusian journalist and TV host who has been exiled in Ukraine for many years due to media repression in Belarus.
In 1997 he was arrested for reporting on smuggling across the Belarus-Lithuanian border; he spent two years in prison.
“He upheld those standards through his years even as he mentored and inspired a generation of journalists in Ukraine”, CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said in a statement Wednesday.
Ukraine’s media community was deeply affected by the brutal slaying of Ukrainska Pravda founder Heorhiy Gongadze in 2000.
Dekanoidze said he expects Federal Bureau of Investigation agents to arrive in Kyiv shortly to help investigate the killing and asked Ukrainian politicians not to jump the gun on the theories of why Sheremet was targeted.
Ukraine’s President, Petro Poroshenko, said the death of Sheremet, whom he knew personally, was a “terrible tragedy” and ordered an immediate inquiry.
In 2004 Sheremet suffered a severe beating in Belarus. Five years ago, he moved to Kiev.
Advertisement
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was “shocked by the cynical” murder of Sheremet, as quoted by RIA. He was particularly critical of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s harsh suppression of political dissent.
