Ashmyany, as a border city, required special permission to access, which complicated the situation for journalists wishing to cover the case.

Additionally, the courtroom was too small to accommodate all the interested parties, but the request to transfer the trial to a larger location was denied.

[4] Sheremet and Zavadsky were represented by Belarusian public defenders and Russian attorney Viktor Kuznetsov from ORT.

[2] According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, its sources in Belarus suspect that Zavadsky was murdered because he had footage showing Belarusian security agents fighting in Chechnya alongside Chechen rebels.

[2] On 20 November 2000, independent Belarusian media received an anonymous email from a person who identified himself as an officer of the Belarus State Security Committee working on the Zavadsky investigation: "The writer claimed that nine suspects had been arrested, seven of whom were either current or former officers of the Presidential Security Service, and that the suspects had confessed to killing Zavadsky and had named the place where his body was buried.

— report from Committee to Protect Journalists[2]The following day, Lukashenko blamed Zavadsky's disappearance on Chechen kidnappers.

[9] In addition to Zavadsky, Belarusian authorities failed to determine the fates of leading opposition figures Yury Zakharanka and Viktar Hanchar, and businessman Anatol Krasouski, who also disappeared in 1999 and 2000.

[2] In September 2002, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe stated that it was “seriously concerned about the lack of progress” and established an investigative sub-committee to probe into the multiple “disappearances.”[10] In December 2003, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe alleged that top government officials were involved in the disappearances and subsequent cover-ups.

[11] In September 2004, the European Union and the United States issued travel bans for fоur Belarusian officials suspected in being involved in the kidnapping of Zavadsky: Interior Affairs Minister Vladimir Naumov, Prosecutor General Viktor Sheiman, Minister for Sports and Tourism Yuri Sivakov, and Colonel Dmitry Pavlichenko from the Belarus Interior Ministry.