Poland charges three Belarusians after 2021 Minsk forced landing

Poland on Friday charged three Belarusian officials in connection with the 2021 forced landing of a Ryanair aircraft in Minsk with an opposition Belarusian blogger on board.

Investigators accused the trio of taking control of an aircraft, forced landing and deprivation of liberty, the prosecutor’s office in Warsaw said in a statement.

Next, the authorities plan to request international arrest warrants for the three Belarusians, who are not in Poland.

Protasevich co-founded the regime-critical Telegram channel Nexta, which supports the opposition against long-time Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko.

In May 2021, the Belarusian authorities, aided by a fighter jet, forced a Ryanair passenger aircraft flying from Athens to Vilnius to make an unscheduled landing in Minsk, claiming there was a bomb threat.

Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega were on board and both were arrested after the landing before being sentenced to prison.

Protasevich was then unexpectedly released in 2023, while Sapega was pardoned.

The Polish prosecutor’s office took up investigations as the aircraft was registered in Poland.

“During the investigation, recordings of conversations from the cockpit of the aircraft including the conversation recording device and technical flight data from the so-called ‘Black Box’ were secured,” the authority stated.

Furthermore, reports from crew members about the course of the flight were obtained.

According to the prosecutor’s office, the suspects are the former director of the Belarusian air traffic control authority, the head of the flight control centre in Minsk and the head of the Belarusian intelligence service (KGB).

The investigations revealed that the suspects provided false information about an alleged explosive device on board when taking control of the aircraft and forcing the pilots to make an emergency landing, depriving 132 passengers of their freedom, while the main aim was to arrest Protasevich.