In this section you will find cases of impunity dating back to 1998. They represent only a fraction of the hundreds of unresolved murders of journalists around the world in the last ten years.
Newspapers can freely publish the texts, with credit to WAN. Publication embargo: These materials should not be published before 3 May, World Press Freedom Day.

Bangladesh: Dipankar Chakrabarty, murdered on 2 October, 2004
Dipankar Chakrabarty, editor of daily Bangladeshi newspaper Durjoy Bangla and vice president of the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists, was hacked to death and decapitated on 2 October, 2004. He was walking home from work just after midnight when neighbours heard his screams and motorcycles speeding away. One neighbour came out to the street to find Chakrabarty’s headless body. Shortly after, a sack and a new towel used by the assailants were discovered. Police called his brutal killing the work of “professionals,” but they have not identified any motive or suspects in the case. Chakrabarty, 59, had previously told Reporters Without Borders he was being threatened due to some expos�s he had done on local gangsters receiving the protection of politicians in Sherpur. Local Bangladeshi newspapers left blank space on the first page for the three days following the murder to protest the slaying and demanding a capture of the assailants within 72 hours. No arrests or developments have been reported by the administration since his murder.

Belarus: Dimitry Zavadsky, murdered some time between July and 28 November, 2000
Dimitry Zavadsky, a Belarusian cameraman with the Russian public television network ORT, who had been abducted at Minsk Airport on July 7th, was declared dead on 28 November, 2000. Zavadsky, a former official cameraman of President Alexander Lukashenko, was reported missing when he failed to meet his ORT-colleague and friend Pavel Sheremet at Minsk Airport. Sheremet and Zavadsky had recently travelled to Chechnya to film “The Chechnya Diaries,” a documentary about the war in Chechnya. Upon return to Belarus, Zavadsky received threatening calls from an unknown man, who insisted on meeting with him. On the day of his traceless disappearance, Zavadsky had been seen inside the airport shortly before Sheremet’s arrival and his car was later found in the parking lot. On July 16, 2002, the Belarus Supreme Court charged Valery Ignatovich, former head of special units at the interior ministry and a subordinate, Maxim Malik, with a life sentence for the abduction and disappearance of the young cameraman, but the proceedings were closed to the public. The process further failed to address the question of what had happened to the journalist after his disappearance. Prosecutors announced that the case was reopened on December 10, 2003, when the official investigation of the European Council released their human rights report, which alleged the involvement of high-level government officials in the case. Further investigations were not made public. Despite new developments, triggered by a press conference held by Lukashenko on July 20, 2004, appeals of Zavadsky’s family to reopen to case have been rejected by the General Prosecutor’s Office.

Belgrade: Slavko Curuvija, murdered 11 April, 1999
Slavko Curuvija, publisher of Daily Telegraph and European, was assassinated on April 11, 1999 in his hometown Belgrade. Both newspapers had been sanctioned for targeting the Milosevic government with outspoken criticism. In December of 1998, Curuvija had conducted a testimonial on Milosevic’s rule before the US Congress’s Helsinki Commission in Washington D.C. Upon his return Curuvija was sentenced to five months in jail for "spreading false information." Six days before the murder the pro-government newspaper Politika Express accused Curuvija of urging NATO to bomb Yugoslavia and warned that "people like him would be neither forgotten nor forgiven." Curuvija was assaulted together with his girlfriend Branka Prpa in an alleyway that lead to their apartment in central Belgrade. The assassins hit Prpa across the back with a pistol and shot Curuvija in the head several times. Prpa identified the assassins as two men dressed in black wearing facemasks. Dusan Velickovic, a fellow journalist, released a report of the Yugoslavian State Police, leaked to him, which describes the surveillance of "a target" detailing the hours before Curuvija’s assassination. Alexandar Tijanic, former columnist of the Daily Telegraph, said in an interview that Curuvija had powerful enemies. The assassins have not been officially identified and investigations into the case have not been conducted.

Canada: Tara Singh Hayer, murdered on 18 November, 1998
Tara Singh Hayer, editor of the Punjabi-language newspaper Indo-Canadian Times, was assassinated in the garage of his home in Surrey, British Colombia on 18 November, 1998. Ten years earlier Hayer had already been the victim of an assassination attempt, which left him partially paralyzed. Despite continued death threats Hayer continued his work. He was an outspoken critic of fundamentalist Sikh movements in India as well as abroad, and campaigned tirelessly for a greater intercultural understanding. In spite of investigations undertaken by Canadian authorities, no concrete suspect has been found to this day. Hayer was killed shortly before his testimonial against suspects in a fatal Air India bombing. Other murders cases of outspoken critics of hard-line Sikh organizations have been linked to this case.

Indonesia: Sander Thoenes, murdered on 21 September, 1999
Sander Thoenes, a Dutch journalist on assignment for the Financial Times and the Christian Science Monitor, was killed covering the landing of the UN Peacekeeping mission in the city of Dili on September 21, 1999. Thoenes had arranged with a motorbike rider to take him to the Becora area, a strongly pro-independent area of East Timor. They encountered the militiant Battalion 745, which was retreating from Dili, due to the arrival of Australian-led UN Peacekeeping forces. The battalion fired on the motorbike and caused Thoenes to fall. The driver of the motorbike escaped. Sander Thones body was found by Peacekeeping Forces on September 22, shot in the back and bearing grave marks of torture, with his left ear sliced off and several cuts in his face. The UN Sanctioned International Force in East Timor conducted a report into the killing and established that Thoenes was most likely murdered by the Battalion 745. Another in-depth report was conducted by Dutch officials and concluded that Thoenes was shot in the back by Battalion 745 Second Lieutnand Camilo dos Santos as he lay on his side having fallen off the motorbike. Despite overwhelming evidence and testimonials, the Indonesian Attorney General on June 19th, 2002, declared the case to be closed due to insufficient evidence to prosecute and the unreliablitity of the key witness. Despite official protest of the Dutch government, Thoenes killers have not been brought to justice to this day.

Philippines: Gene Boyd Lumawag, murdered 12 November, 2004
Gene Boyd Lumawag, photo editor for MindaNews newspaper, was shot dead on a street in downtown Jolo on 12 November, 2004. He was returning to his hotel room after taking photos of the sunset at the nearby marina pier. The gunman fired one bullet killing Lumawag, 26, before leaving the scene. Days later, a task force was created specifically for the investigation into the slaying of Lumawag. The report of one eyewitness lead investigators to file a complaint on 17 November for two suspects, brothers Omar and Iting Sailani. MindaNews colleagues say Lumawag, 26, may have been in Jolo working on a corruption story with a journalist from Mindanao Island who was not present at Lumawag’s attack and was safely refuged in a church shortly after. No motive has been established behind the killing of Lumawag though the Sailani brothers are reportedly on the most wanted list of Abu Sayyaf, an islamist separatists’ group based in Jolo responsible for other attacks and kidnappings. Since the task force filed the complaint, no formal charges have been brought against Lumawag’s suspected killers.

Russia: Natalya Skryl, murdered on 9 March 2002
Natalya Skryl, 29, a business reporter for the Nashe Vremya newspaper based in Rostov-on-Don, south-western Russia, was beaten to death when returning to her home in the city of Taganrog late on the night of 9 March, 2002. She was discovered unconscious from repeated blows to the head by a heavy, blunt object, and died shortly after being taken to a nearby hospital. A large sum of money was found in Skryl’s handbag at the time of her death, suggesting robbery was not the motive behind the attack. Shortly after the murder, Nashe Vremya’s editor-in-chief, Vera Ioujanskaia, said she thought it was connected to sensitive information Skryl had obtained about the business activities of several companies struggling to get control over a local metallurgical plant. Since the investigation was opened into Skryl’s death three years ago, no suspect has been arrested.

Sierra Leone: Kurt Schork, murdered on 24 May, 2000
Kurt Schork, a veteran Reuters News Agency correspondent, was killed by rebels of the Revolutionary United Front in an ambush on 24 May, 2000. Schork was a well known war correspodent. Richard Holbrook, former US ambassador to the UN said: "Kurt Schork was one of the bravest, smartest and finest journalists I have ever worked with over the last 35 years. He was almost always right. He showed no bias. He was cheerful no matter how awful the situation. He believed journalists could be a force for good in the world while reporting the truth as they saw it." Schork’s family in cooperation with Reuters News Agency has established a memorial fund honoring achievements of local and freelance journalists every year. Kurt Schork’s murderers have never been brought to justice, nor has a thorough investigation taken place to reveal their identity.

The Philippines: Edgar Damalerio, murdered on 13 May, 2000
Edgar Damalerio, managing editor of the weekly Zamboanga Scribe and radio host on DXKP radio station on the island of Mindanao, was killed on 13 May, 2002. He was shot in the chest by an unidentified gunman as he was driving home from a press conference in Pagadian City. The murderer fled the scene. Damalerio died on arrival to the hospital. Before his death Damalerio wrote an expos� on the failure of the Lanao del Sur Electric Cooperative (Lasureco) to complete any of its projects during the administration of former Philippine President Fidel Ramos. The story, which appeared in the Mindanao Gold Star on 19 April 2002, claimed that the company lied when it reported that the projects had been completed. The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) arrested policeman Guillermo Wapille last 17 May. He was identified by two witnesses who were with Damalerio at the time of the killing. However, Wapille managed to escape from custody. Two years after the killing, Wapille is still at large. One of the witnesses, Amoro, was recently killed depsite being placed under special witness protection. Damalerio’s widow, Gemma, is still in hiding for fear that the killer of her husband would go after her