Veronica Cherkasova: Murder Mystery

The film­mak­er again attempts to untan­gle motives of the bru­tal mur­der of the Belaru­sian jour­nal­ist Veron­i­ca Cherkaso­va.

Next Octo­ber it will be 10 years since Veron­i­ca Cherkaso­va, jour­nal­ist of the Sol­i­dar­i­ty news­pa­per, was relent­less­ly stabbed at her home in Min­sk. Before the film pre­miere, the press-ser­vice of BAJ takes an inter­view with the author of the movie.

- When did you get the idea to make this film?

- On the day of the mur­der, me and AP cor­re­spon­dent Siarhei Grits were wit­ness­es of the inves­tiga­tive action. So, it had been two hours of inves­ti­ga­tion, and an inves­ti­ga­tor from the prosecutor’s office said: “We’ve got to take the pio­neer!” Then I didn’t under­stand what he was talk­ing about, but real­ized it two days lat­er when the inves­ti­ga­tors start­ed to press Veronica’s son. It means with­in two hours the inves­ti­ga­tor had already sin­gled out whom “to take”… Then the inves­ti­ga­tion fol­lowed a false trace, and the crime has stayed unsolved. That is why I’ve got the desire to make the film. Lat­er on Siarhei Sat­suk con­duct­ed his own inves­ti­ga­tion, in which our ver­sions coin­cid­ed…

So then the idea of the movie was formed, we looked for resources. And final­ly, this year we’ve man­aged to pro­duce the movie.

- In your film you con­cen­trate on the ver­sion of the mur­der through pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties – so called Iraqi trace?

- It is one of ver­sions. Nobody insists that this ver­sion is the last instance truth, but there are many facts con­firm­ing this. The inves­ti­ga­tors of the case do not allow access to the proofs refer­ring to the secre­cy of inves­ti­ga­tion. That is why the movie is titled “Secre­cy of inves­ti­ga­tion. P.S.”.

- Whose tes­ti­monies did you take in mind while mak­ing the movie?

- There are very few experts in this case because nobody would ever tell inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists about secrets of Infobank or Bel­met­al­en­er­go. That is why the main sources are Veronica’s col­leagues and rel­a­tives.

- When and in what cir­cum­stances will the crime be solved? And do you believe in this?

- In all I con­sid­er that an unsolved crime is a sin. But jour­nal­ists can real­ly very lit­tle in this case. There is no access to the case mate­ri­als. No one from oper­a­tive offi­cers would ever talk to us. Even those who no longer work in the agen­cies.

But crim­i­nal prac­tice shows that soon­er or lat­er a lot of things get revealed. There were cas­es in Belarus when mur­der­ers were found twen­ty-five years lat­er. So I would want to believe that the crime will be solved.