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Personal File

Dmitry Zavadsky was born on August 28 1972.

From 1994 up to 1997 – a personal camera man of A.H. Lukashenko. From January 1997 – an operator of Public Russian Television (ORT). In the spring of 1997 he was arrested together with another journalist of ORT Pavel Sheremet for the report about transparency of Belarusian-Lithuanian boarder, and was trialed and given a year and a half of a suspended sentence. From October of 1999 until May of 2000 he was working in Chechnya, where together with Pavel Sheremet was shooting a film “Chechnya’s Diary”.

On July 7, 2000 disappeared in obscure circumstances on his way to the airport “Minsk-2”.

By the fact of Dima’s disappearance a criminal case according to the Article “murder” was initiated, then the accusation was turned to abduction with illegal deprivation of freedom of a person. About a year had passed when this fact was announced to journalists at a press-conference in Office of Public Prosecutor. That time it was officially approved that in the affair had been involved the officers of MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs)– special subdivision officials for fight with terrorism “Almaz” /Diamond/. Moreover, the name of main figure Valerij Ignatovich was announced; he and three members of the gang had already been in a detention place of KGB. As for the motive of the abduction of Dmitry Zavadsky, according to the version of the investigation, it had become Dima’s interview to “Belaruskaja Delovaja Gazeta” /Belarusian Business Newspaper/ about the former special service’s officials who waged the war at Chechnya’s side. Though the name of Ignatovich was not mentioned in the interview, the investigators were sure that it was exactly an “Almaz-member” who had taken revenge on the television operator. To have found traces of Ignatovich Belarusian investigators had helped Russian special service officials who detained Ihnatovich in summer of 2000 on the territory of Chechnya. He acknowledged that by the order of high-ranked officials of Belarusian Military Forces Department he had fulfilled a special task. After being set free he came back to Belarus, where he was arrested and put to a detention place of KGB…

“There is no another motive in the abduction of Zavadsky. Only the revenge. This is our strong conviction. We have checked various versions, but there is no another one.” – declared in an interview the head of the investigation group Ivan Branchel.