A missing Ukrainian journalist, Vasyl Klymentyev, is feared dead after nearly a month-long investigation has failed to find any clue to his whereabouts, Ukrainian media reported Monday.
Klymentyev was editor-in-chief of an investigative newspaper, Novyi Stil (New Style), in Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv. Novi Stil specializes in reporting corruption, local government irregularities, and social injustice issues, and Klymentyev’s disappearance is believed to be linked to his work.
Klymentyev went missing Aug. 11, and was last seen entering a metallic-gray BMW with an unknown man outside his home. A few days after his disappearance, Klymentyev’s mobile phone was found in a boat drifting on a reservoir, near Kharkiv.
At a press conference Monday in Kyiv, Deputy Editor of Novyi Stil Petr Matviyenko, said, “The investigation is going like Brownian motion [random motion of particles suspended in gas or liquid]. It has not made any progress in establishing the truth,” according to the Ukrainian bureau of Russian News Agency Interfax.
Matvienko also said that police were putting pressure on him, and his family not to speak about Klymentyev’s case, “On Saturday, two policemen stopped me to search me. They asked me to give them my cell phone,” he said, quoted by Radio Free Europe. He said that later his SIM-cards were blocked.
Klymentyev’s wife was prevented from participating in the press conference because Kharkiv’s tax office informed her it would be conducting an unscheduled inspection of her business tax documents, and she had to return to Kharkiv, according to Matvienko.
Matviyenko earlier told reporters that Klymentyev had been threatened several times before, and had been offered bribes to keep quiet over damaging evidence he had collected against regional officials in Kharkiv, including a local prosecutor and the head of the regional tax department, Stanislav Denysyuk.
Last week, Ukraine’s Interior Minister Anatoly Mogilev said there was enough evidence to consider Klymentyev to be dead. He did not specify, saying only the investigation was underway.
Press freedom has declined sharply in Ukraine since Russian-leaning President Viktor Yanukovych assumed power earlier this year.
A Kyiv appeals court last week decided to cancel broadcast frequencies for two independent television channels, Channels 5 and TBi.
The decision came after a lengthy legal case, accompanied by domestic and international criticism against Ukrainian officials for curtailing media around the country.
