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A COURT in Belarus convicted a journalist who was arrested after being pulled off a commercial flight that was diverted to the country and sentenced him today to eight years in prison.
Raman Pratasevich was dramatically arrested in May 2021 when Belarusian flight controllers ordered the Ryanair flight he was on, travelling from Greece to Lithuania, to land in Minsk, telling the crew there was a bomb threat.
No explosives were found on board once the airliner was on the ground, but Mr Pratasevich, a Belarusian citizen who lived in exile at the time, was detained.
His Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, was also arrested. The plane then was allowed to continue on to its original destination.
Mr Pratasevich ran Nexta, a Telegram messaging app channel that was widely used by participants in mass protests against the disputed 2020 election that gave Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in office.
He was charged with organising unrest and plotting to seize power.
Nexta is one of the most well-known opposition outlets and broadcasts from Poland. Together with its sister channel, Nexta Live, it has 1.4 million followers.
The founder of the Telegram channel, Stsiapan Putsila, and another editor of the channel, Yan Rudzik, were sentenced in absentia to 20 and 19 years in prison respectfully. Both remain in exile.
After the arrest, Mr Pratasevich went on Belarusian state television several times to confess, denounce the opposition and apologise to Mr Lukashenko — appearances that critics said were made under duress.
Both Mr Pratasevich and his girlfriend, Ms Sapega, were later released from custody and put under house arrest.
In May 2022, Ms Sapega was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison.
Belarus’s opposition leader in exile, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, called the sentences to Mr Pratasevich, Mr Putsila and Mr Rudzik “disregard for justice” on the part of “the Belarus regime,” which conducted “a fake trial.”
Mr Pratasevic has “been the regime’s hostage since the Ryanair hijacking,” Ms Tikhanovskaya said in a tweet.
