Belarus forces Lithuania-bound plane to land to detain blogger

MOSCOW • Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko ordered a Ryanair flight carrying a key opposition blogger and headed for Lithuania to land in the Belarusian capital Minsk yesterday and detained him on arrival, officials and rights activists said.

Law enforcers detained activist Roman Protasevich, put on a wanted list after last year's mass street protests following an election in which Mr Lukashenko had claimed a landslide victory.

The aircraft, flying over Belarus from Athens to Vilnius, had almost reached Lithuania when it changed direction and was escorted to Minsk amid reports that it had explosives on board, according to an online flight tracker and state news agency BelTA. No explosives were found, BelTA said.

Mr Lukashenko personally ordered a warplane to escort the Ryanair Boeing to Minsk, BelTA reported.

The Belarus department for organised crime control also reported that Mr Protasevich had been detained but then deleted the statement from its Telegram channel.

Ryanair and the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had no immediate comment.

In power since 1994, Mr Lukashenko launched a violent crackdown on the 2020 protests. Around 35,000 have been detained since August, rights groups say.

Mr Protasevich is one of the founders of the opposition news service Nexta, a Telegram channel that has become one of the main sources of news about demonstrations in Belarus. It is hostile to Mr Lukashenko and helps to coordinate protests.

REUTERS