Belarus officials charged with air piracy in journalist's arrest

On Thursday, prosecutors in the United States charged four Belarusians with aircraft piracy over claims they diverted a Ryanair flight last year to arrest an opposition journalist using a phony bomb threat ruse.

On March 26, 2017, police in Minsk, Belarus, arrested journalist Raman Pratasevich.

According to federal prosecutors in New York, on May 23, Belarus's air traffic control authorities diverted a regularly scheduled passenger flight between Athens, Greece, and Vilnius, Lithuania, to Minsk, Belarus.

"Since the dawn of powered flight, countries around the world have cooperated to keep passenger airplanes safe. The defendants shattered those standards by diverting an airplane to further the improper purpose of repressing dissent and free speech," U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. 

According to Ryanair, Belarusian flight controllers notified the pilots of a bomb threat and ordered them to land in Minsk. The Belarusian military scrambled a MiG-29 fighter jet in an apparent attempt to encourage its crew to obey flight controllers.

Joe Biden announced sanctions against Belarus on the one-year anniversary of the election of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a vote the U.S. and international community deemed flawed.

Raman Pratasevich, an activist and journalist, arrested in September, ran a popular messaging app that helped organize massive demonstrations against Lukashenko. Pratasevich, 26, left Belarus in 2019 and was accused of inciting riots there.

Last year, Lukashenka was elected to a sixth term as the leader of this nation. It was widely believed that the vote was stolen, which triggered mass protests in Belarus, which led to increased repression of protesters, dissidents, and independent media by Lukashenko's regime. Over 35,000 people were arrested, and thousands were beaten and jailed.

According to court papers, the accused include Leonid Mikalaevich Churo, director-general of Belaeronavigatsia Republican Unitary Air Navigation Services Enterprise, the state air navigation authority of Belarus; Oleg Kazyuchits, deputy director-general of Belaeronavigatsia; and two Belarusian security agents whose full identities weren't disclosed.

* This article contains information sourced from VOA