Western outrage has grown and the European Union has threatened more sanctions over the forced diversion of a plane to Belarus in order to arrest an opposition journalist.
The dramatic gambit apparently ordered by the country’s authoritarian president was denounced as piracy, a hijacking and terrorism.
Ryanair said Belarusian flight controllers told the crew there was a bomb threat against the plane as it was crossing through the country’s airspace and ordered it to land in the capital Minsk.
A Belarusian MiG-29 fighter jet was scrambled to escort the plane – in a brazen show of force by President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled with an iron fist for more than a quarter of a century.
Ryanair said Belarusian flight controllers told the crew there was a bomb threat against the plane as it was crossing through the country’s airspace and.
The Ryanair plane with registration number SP-RSM, carrying opposition figure Raman Pratasevich which was traveling from Athens to Vilnius and was diverted to Minsk after a bomb threat, lands at the International Airport outside Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday, May 23, 2021. The presidential press service said President Alexander Lukashenko personally ordered that a MiG-29 fighter jet accompany the Ryanair plane carrying opposition figure Raman Pratasevich and traveling from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania to the airport in the capital Minsk. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
BRUSSELS (AP) – Western outrage grew and the European Union threatened more sanctions Monday over the forced diversion of a plane to Belarus in order to arrest an opposition journalist. The dramatic gambit apparently ordered by the country’s authoritarian president was denounced as piracy, a hijacking and terrorism.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the diversion “shocking” and appealed for Pratasevich s release. EU leaders were particularly forceful in their condemnation of the arrest and the move against the plane, which was flying between two of the bloc’s member nations and was being operated by an airline based in Ireland, also a member.
The bloc summoned Belarus ambassador “to condemn the inadmissible step of the Belarusian authorities” and said in a statement the arrest was yet again “another blatant attempt to silence all opposition voices in the country.
President Gitanas Nauseda of Lithuania urged the EU to take “clear actions in order to change the pattern of behavior of this very dangerous regime,” and said a previously planned EU summit on Monday would assess whether to close its airspace to Belarus carriers, declare Belarusian airspace as unsafe and expand sanctions against Lukashenko s government.