By the ruling passed on Thursday, the District Court of the Warsaw City Center applied pre-trial detention to all suspects.
“The totality of the data allows us to reasonably believe that with a false report about an explosive device and an ultimatum to immediately land the plane at Minsk airport, the special services of Belarus carried out the task of demonstratively detaining the opposition activist Raman Pratasevičius who was flying on the plane and to intimidate those who oppose the Belarusian regime and other persons”, according to the statement of the prosecutor’s office published on Friday .
In this investigation, Polish prosecutors filed charges against three Belarusian citizens, who at the time of the incident held high-ranking positions in institutions related to state security and air navigation, for unlawfully depriving 132 passengers and crew members of the plane of various nationalities, passengers and crew members of the plane with acts of a terrorist nature. to intimidate those who oppose the Belarusian regime and other persons.
The Lithuanian and Polish prosecutor’s offices will continue cooperation in the joint investigation team coordinated by Eurojust until the full investigation of this event is completed and the necessary procedural decisions are made.
Prosecutors of the Organized Crime and Corruption Department of the Polish Prosecutor’s Office informed Eurojust, the European Union’s agency for cooperation in the field of criminal justice, and the joint investigation group coordinated by this agency, of which the Lithuanian Prosecutor’s Office is a member.
in 2021 May 23 around 1 p.m. The plane of the Irish airline “Ryanair”, registered in Poland, which was flying from Athens to Vilnius with 132 people (passengers and crew), was unexpectedly diverted to Minsk.
As announced, the Ryanair plane flying from Greece to Vilnius was forced to land in Minsk after a false report about a bomb allegedly on board. He was accompanied in the Belarusian airspace by a MIG-29 fighter of the military air force of this country.
The pilots were forced to make an emergency landing at Minsk airport after the Minsk air traffic control center notified them of an alleged explosive device on board, the risk of a possible explosion and demanded an immediate landing. After the pilots complied with this requirement, the Belarusian authorities arrested two passengers flying on the aircraft – R. Pratasevičius and his then-girlfriend Sofija Sapegas, and kept the others in the airport area guarded by armed officers for several hours. After almost eight hours, the plane was finally allowed to take off and return to Vilnius.
According to the prosecutor’s office, fraudulently taking control of the plane can be regarded as an act of a terrorist nature, posing a direct danger to people’s lives and health and an illegal restriction of the freedom of the plane’s crew and passengers.
Taking into account the investigations started in Lithuania and Poland immediately after this event and the interests of both countries, an international joint investigation group was formed, the activities of which are coordinated by Eurojust.
While coordinating further actions, the representatives of the Lithuanian and Polish prosecutor’s offices also agreed on the concentration of the investigation in Poland, thereby ensuring the implementation of the extremely important principle for justice, which declares that a person cannot be punished twice for the same crime.
While investigating the unprecedented event that caused a great international reaction, Lithuanian and Polish law enforcement officials conducted a detailed inspection of the aircraft that returned to Lithuania, examined individual aircraft devices and pilot conversation records, crew members’ reports submitted to Ryanair, technical flight data from “black boxes”, the video, audio recordings and photos taken by the plane’s passengers in Minsk, interviewed dozens of witnesses, including crew members and passengers, asked and received the conclusions of experts in different fields, relevant answers from foreign countries and collected many other significant data.
ELTA reminds that the activist R. Pratasevičius and his girlfriend S. Sapega, who flew on the plane, are accused by the Belarusian regime of helping to coordinate the anti-government protests that arose after Aliaksandr Lukashenka declared himself president for the sixth term after the elections, which the West considers falsified.
A little later, both pleaded guilty to the charges against them and decided to make a deal with investigators.
The interview of R. Pratasevičius, who until then had criticized the Belarusian regime, to the state media, in which he admitted and called for protests, and at the same time praised A. Lukashenko, caused a lot of debate in the public space. in 2023 the activist was sentenced to eight years in prison, later released from the sentence.
Last year it was announced that Belarusian dictator A. Lukashenka had pardoned student S. Sapega, 25-year-old Russian citizen S. Sapega was sentenced to six years in prison for “inciting social hatred” and “violence and threats”.
in 2019 R. Pratasevičius had retired to Europe, from where he helped manage Nexta channels on the Telegram network, which became an important media outlet of the Belarusian opposition, helping to mobilize protesters during historic protests against the disputed re-election of A. Lukashenka in 2020.
After their arrest, R. Pratasevičius and S. Sapega appeared in videos where they “confessed” to their crimes. According to their supporters, these videos were filmed under duress and are a tactic of the Belarusian regime to suppress its critics.
The incident involving the forced landing of the plane sparked international outrage and drew sanctions from Europe, Canada, Great Britain and the United States.
2024-09-07 00:51:21