NEW YORK (Washington Insider Magazine) – Four Belarusian public officials were charged with aircraft piracy by US authorities on Thursday for redirecting a Ryanair aircraft last year to detain an opposition journalist under the pretense of a bomb threat.
The allegations, presented by federal lawyers in New York, detailed how air traffic control officers in Minsk, Belarus, diverted a regularly scheduled airliner traveling between Athens, Greece, and Vilnius, Lithuania, on May 23.
According to Ryanair, Belarusian flight controllers informed the pilots of a bomb threat and instructed the plane to land in Minsk. In an evident attempt to persuade the crew to follow the flight controllers’ directions, the Belarusian military launched a MiG-29 fighter plane.
Raman Pratasevich, a reporter and activist who was detained, created a popular mobile application that assisted in the organization of major protests opposing Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Pratasevich, 26, fled Belarus in 2019 after being accused of inciting disturbances, according to NBC News.
The widespread assumption that the 2020 election was rigged sparked huge riots in Belarus, leading to further harassment of protestors, dissidents, and independent media by Lukashenko’s authority. Over 35,000 individuals were detained, with many more beaten and imprisoned. The demonstrations raged for months, with only the arrival of winter bringing an end to them.
The defendants are classified as fugitives by US prosecutors, who say they are accused of plotting to commit airplane piracy, which has a mandatory minimum term of years of imprisonment.
Officials in the United States claim they have jurisdiction over the issue because American people were on board.
Following the incident last year, the European Union quickly prohibited Belarusian airlines from utilizing EU airspace and airports, advised EU-based carriers to stop flying over Belarus, and sanctioned some Belarusian authorities. The aviation incident, according to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, was a hijacking. Lithuania has instructed all arriving and outbound flights to avoid Belarus, while Ukraine’s government has moved to prohibit Ukrainian flights from using Belarus’ airspace.
Belarus’ main partner Russia, on the other hand, expressed assistance, claiming that Belarus behaved in accordance with international bomb threat norms and that the West reacted prematurely. Days after the incident, Russian President Vladimir Putin invited Lukashenko for discussions and nodded in sympathy and understanding as Lukashenko raged about EU sanctions, accusing the bloc of attempting to destabilize his country.
