MOSCOW — Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko
ordered a Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania to land on Sunday in Minsk,
where a Belarusian opposition activist on board was detained, prompting
international condemnation.
اضافة اعلان
EU member
Lithuania urged the European Union and NATO to
respond, Germany called for an immediate explanation and Poland’s prime
minister called it a “reprehensible act of state terrorism.”
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen,
said Belarus’ action was “utterly unacceptable”.
The aircraft, flying from Athens to Vilnius, had almost
reached Lithuania when it changed direction and was escorted to Minsk, the
Belarusian capital, after reports that it had explosives on board, according to
an online flight tracker and BelTA state news agency.
Belarusian law enforcers took activist Roman Protasevich,
26, from the plane and detained him. He was placed on a wanted list after
street protests last year following a presidential election in which Lukashenko
was declared the winner but opponents complained of electoral fraud.
Lukashenko personally ordered a warplane to escort the
Boeing to Minsk, BelTA reported. No explosives were found, it said.
Lithuania and traditional Russian ally Belarus are neighbors
and former members of the Soviet Union. Lithuania is now a member of the
European Union, Belarus is not.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda called for an
international response.
“I call on NATO and EU allies to immediately react to the
threat posed to international civil aviation by the Belarus regime. The
international community must take immediate steps that this does not repeat,”
Nauseda said.
Lithuanian presidential adviser Asta Skaisgiryte said the
operation to force-land the plane carrying around 170 people from 12 countries
seemed to be pre-planned.
She said Belarus intelligence services knew who was onboard
the plane, which was forced to land with the help of MIG-29 fighter jet.
Protasevich had lived in Vilnius since November, she said.
A Lithuanian airport authority spokeswoman told Reuters the
plane, scheduled to land in Vilnius earlier on Sunday, was now expected to land
later in the day.
‘Regrettable’ incident
Ryanair said the plane’s crew were notified by Belarus of a
potential security threat on board and were instructed to divert to the nearest
airport, Minsk.
The plane landed safely, passengers were offloaded and
security checks were made by local authorities, it said.
The delay was regrettable and outside its control, it added.
The Belarus department for organized crime control also
reported that Protasevich had been detained but then deleted the statement from
its Telegram channel.
In power since 1994, Lukashenko launched a violent crackdown
on the 2020 street protests. Around 35,000 people have been detained since
August, human rights groups say. Dozens have received jail terms. Authorities
say that more than 1,000 criminal cases have been launched.
Protasevich is one of the founders of the opposition news
service NEXT, a Telegram channel that has become one of the main sources of
news about demonstrations in Belarus. It is hostile to Lukashenko and helps to
coordinate protests.
Belarusian opposition politician Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya,
Lukashenko’s main rival at the last election, said Belarus 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.”
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