Journalist killed in Kyiv car bombing buried
July 23, 2016
Sheremet, a Russian national, was buried Saturday in Minsk, the Belarus capital where he was born. His funeral service at a city cathedral was attended by an estimated 1,000 people.
"Sheremet will go down in history as a bright example of the new journalism of which the leaders of Russia and Belarus and Ukraine are afraid," Zhanna Litvina, head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, said.
The reporter worked on a radio talk show and news website site Ukrainska Pravda, which is known for its investigative work. His career began in his native Belarus but he left the country for Russia after he was detained due to his reporting. He was known as a critic of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. While living abroad, he founded an internet portal called Belorusskiy Partisan. He moved to Ukraine in 2014 after quitting Russian television channel OTR in protest of the Kremlin's stance on Ukraine.
Saturday's funeral followed a memorial ceremony held Friday in Ukraine's capital Kyiv, where hundreds of mourners, including family members and fellow reporters, laid flowers at his open casket. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko attended the memorial.
Pavel Sheremet was killed when the car he was driving exploded at a busy Kyiv intersection on the morning of July 20 as he was on his way to work. No arrests have been made so far.
se/jlw (AP, AFP, dpa)