On December 25, 2011, Nasser Shaikh was opening presents and having breakfast with his family, in Manchester, England, when he received a phone call informing him that his brother, Khuram, had been murdered in a hotel on the southernmost coast of Sri Lanka. The authorities assured the Shaikh family that the men responsible for taking his brother’s life and raping his brother’s girlfriend would be tried in court and ultimately convicted. As of mid-2013, there had yet to be a trial, and Nasser felt trapped in a permanent mourning, unable to move beyond this tragedy. It was then that he decided to go to Sri Lanka to try to answer a few questions himself.

Update (July 29th): Last Wednesday, when newyorker.com posted ”The Brothers Shaikh,” there had been no progress in the case for a year and a half. But on Sunday, July 28th, the government in Colombo suddenly announced that eight men who are believed to have murdered Khuram and raped his girlfriend, Victoria, will be indicted.

Video by Peter Savodnik, Ed Perkins, and Kannan Arunasalam, of Stateless Media.