A Polish court has arrested in absentia three Belarusians who in 2021 were directly responsible for forcing a Ryanair plane to land in Minsk and detaining a Belarusian oppositionist on board, Gazeta Wyborcza writes. This information was confirmed by the National Prosecutor’s Office.
The Polish prosecutor’s office became aware of the sequence of events, including: thanks to recordings provided by a Minsk air traffic controller – “Gazeta Wyborcza” reports. The controller secretly recorded the entire situation and is now hiding under the care of Polish services in Poland.
A month after the operation, 42-year-old Oleg escaped via Georgia and Turkey to Poland. He carried with him a recording he made on the day of the surgery, containing orders he received from Belarusian officers and communication with the crew.
The Polish prosecutor’s office has been investigating the hijacking of the plane for three years, as the plane belonged to the Polish branch of Ryanair.. Those detained in absentia include the former head of Belarusian air navigation, the head of air traffic control in Minsk and a high-ranking officer of the Belarusian KGB. The Public Prosecutor’s Office accuses them of taking control of the plane through fraud and illegally depriving the crew and passengers of their freedom.
The incident occurred on May 23, 2021 in Belarus. The Ryanair plane was flying from Athens to Vilnius. There were 132 people on board.
In a statement released today on its website, the National Public Prosecutor’s Office reported that during the investigation, recordings of conversations in the aircraft cabin were kept, including the voice recorder and technical data from the so-called black box flight. The Public Prosecutor’s Office also has reports from crew members about the flight’s progress. Investigators also obtained recordings and photos, including those taken by passengers.
Prosecutors found that controllers provided false information about an alleged explosive device aboard the plane and then forced the plane’s pilots to make an emergency landing at Minsk airport. “The evidence clearly shows that the perpetrators’ true objective was the desire to detain Belarusian oppositionist Raman Pratasiewicz in Minsk (what actually happened)“- we read in the advertisement.
Since the suspects do not reside in Poland, the prosecutor could not announce decisions to bring charges against them. Therefore, the prosecutor’s office submitted a request to the court for application of pre-trial detention to initiate the national and international search procedure.
On September 4, the court imposed a three-month prison sentence on the suspects. On September 5, the prosecutor launched a search for suspects using arrest warrants. In the coming days, the public prosecutor will request the court to issue European arrest warrants and ask Interpol to launch a red notice search.
