Plane carrying Belarusian opposition figure ordered to divert to Minsk

A prominent opponent of Belarus's President was arrested after the Ryan Air airliner in which he was travelling was diverted to the country after a bomb threat, in what the opposition is calling a hijacking operation by the government.

The presidential press service said President Alexander Lukashenko on Sunday personally ordered that a MiG-29 fighter jet accompany the Ryanair plane — traveling from Athens (ATH/LGAV), Greece, to Vilnius (VNO/EYVI), Lithuania — to the airport in the capital Minsk (MSQ/UMMS).

Deputy air force commander Andrei Gurtsevich said the plane's crew made the decision to land in Minsk, but Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda claimed the plane was forced to land there. Belarus's "regime is behind this," Mr. Nauseda said on Twitter. The Belarusian Interior Ministry said Raman Pratasevich was arrested at the airport.

Mr. Pratasevich is a co-founder of the Telegram messaging app's Nexta channel, which Belarus last year declared as extremist after it was used to help organise major protests against Mr. Lukashenko. 

Mr. Pratasevich, who had fled the country for Poland, faces charges that could carry a prison sentence of up to 15 years. The presidential press service said the bomb threat was received while the plane was over Belarusian territory.

Flight-tracker sites indicate the plane was about 10 kilometres from the Lithuanian border when it changed course, just two minutes before it was due to enter Lithuanian airspace.

IMAGE TAKEN FROM FLIGHTRADAR24

Ryanair said nothing untoward was found after it was notified of a potential security threat onboard the plane by Belarus air traffic control and instructed to divert to the nearest airport in Minsk.
'State terrorism'

Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called on the International Civil Aviation Organization to begin an investigation.

"It is absolutely obvious that this is an operation by the special services to hijack an aircraft in order to detain activist and blogger Raman Pratasevich," she said in a statement.

"Not a single person who flies over Belarus can be sure of his safety."

She said Belarussian authorities "placed at risk safety of passengers on board and all of the civil aviation for the sake of punishment of the man who was an editor of Belarus's largest independent Telegram channel".

Poland's Prime Minister condemned the detention of Mr Protasevich and called on the European Union to discuss sanctions against Belarus.

"I condemn in the strongest terms the detention of Raman Protasevich by Belarusian authorities, after a Ryanair passenger aircraft was hijacked. This is a reprehensible act of state terrorism," Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Twitter.

Germany demanded that Belarus immediately explain why it ordered the flight to land in Minsk. "We need an immediate explanation by the government of #Belarus on the diversion of a Ryanair flight within the EU to Minsk and the alleged detention of a journalist," Foreign Ministry State Secretary Miguel Berger tweeted.

European Union leaders will discuss "possible sanctions" on Belarus at their summit in Brussels on Monday, a spokesman for EU Council chairman Charles Michel said on Sunday. "Consequences and possible sanctions will be discussed at this occasion," Mr Michel's spokesman Barend Leyts said on Twitter. The EU has already imposed three rounds of sanctions on Belarus, and has been working on a fourth round of measures targeting senior Belarusian officials in response to last year's contested presidential election, diplomats told Reuters previously.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a tweet that the incident was serious and dangerous and required an international investigation. British foreign minister Dominic Raab said there would be serious implications for the "outlandish action". Months of protests arose after last August's presidential election that official results say gave Mr Lukashenko a sixth term in office.

Police cracked down on the protests harshly, detaining around 30,000 people and beating many of them.
Although protests died down during the winter, Belarus has continued to take actions against the opposition and independent news media.

Last week, 11 staff members of the TUT.by news website were detained by police.

UPDATE

The aircraft has just recently departed Minsk for Vilnius

IMAGE TAKEN FROM FLIGHTRADAR24

Aircraft Information:

Owner / Operator: Ryan Air

Code: FR/RYR

Aircraft: B737-8AS

Registration: SP-RSM

Serial Number: 44791

Full story sourced from here

Plane carrying Belarusian opposition figure ordered to divert to Minsk by President Alexander Lukashenko - ABC News