WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Prosecutors in Poland said Friday they have charged three Belarusian officials with using a ruse to divert a Polish-registered airliner, violating the freedom of 132 people on board when they ordered the plane carrying a dissident blogger to land in Minsk in 2021, leading to the arrest of Raman Pratasevich.
Prosecutors said in a statement that because the three Belarusians are not in Poland, they have issued a search warrant so they can present the charges to them. They are also asking for a European Arrest Warrant.
They identified the three men as Leonid C., former head of Belarusian air navigation, Yevgenii T., then an air traffic controller at Minsk airport, and Andrei A.M., head of the Belarusian State Security Committee of the KGB.
The three used a fake bomb threat to divert the plane, which was flying from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania on May 23, 2021. The Ryanair plane, with several Polish citizens on board, was flying through Belarusian airspace at the time.
Belarusian officials removed Pratesevich from the plane, which was then allowed to continue its journey. The dissident was tried and sentenced to eight years in prison after a court convicted him of organizing unrest following the disputed presidential election. He was pardoned in 2023.
Prosecutors based their case on cockpit and flight recorder recordings from the plane, as well as the testimony of the pilots and witnesses. They concluded that the purpose of diverting the plane was to have Pratasevich arrested, their statement said.
Western countries condemned the flight diversion as a form of hijacking and imposed strict sanctions on Lukashenko and Belarus.
If found guilty, the three officials face up to five years in a Polish prison.
