have been imprisoned there on spurious charges that pay the price. so, iran has now stopped negotiations for a prisoner swap, which is really tough on her and her family. thank you so much for now. the belarusian athlete who refused her team s orders to fly home from the olympic games has landed in vienna in the past few minutes. krystsina tsimanouskaya is expected to then fly on to poland, where she s been granted a humanitarian visa. sarah rainsford, is in the belarusian capital, minsk. well, ever since krystina timanovskaya made those very public criticisms of the sporting authorities here, there has been a smear campaign on state media. they have been presenting her as arrogant, letting down her team mates in a race she said she was not prepared for. but of course the scandal has become political. one state media presenter said that the only thing that krystina timanovskaya won
in the olympics was a visa to poland. no medals, just a visa. so, next ordinary smear campaign, which is one of the reasons why she didn t feel safe to return here, to minsk. and today we are seeing another developing story here, which is a sign ofjust how little tolerance there is, utter intolerance, in fact, for dissent. because one of the faces of the opposition protest that we saw here last year, maria kolesnikova, went on trial alongside another opposition activist, maxim znak. now, the two of them are accused of extremely serious charges. they are accused of plotting to overthrow the authorities here. they are facing up to 12 years behind bars. the trial itself was closed, ostensibly for security reasons. at the family outside said they believe it is because there is no evidence against these two, they say the entire trial is simply about silencing critics of the authorities here.
a commercial flight with marriages onboard brought down with fighter jets. nato is calling for an investigation into this ryanair flight that was forced by a fighter jet to land in minsk, the capital of belarus. an activist was onboard and arrested after the plane landed. cnn s frederik pleitgen is live for us this morning. just to be clear, the leader of belarus is considered to be one of the last true dictators in the world, this plane forced to land a commercial plane in midair, forced to land by a fighter jet. what s going on here? reporter: yeah, it s something europe hasn t seen in a very long time. you re absolutely right. alexander lukashenko of behm la ruse is certainly considered to be the last dictator in europe and has been in power for the last 26 years. he had some protests against him last year. that seems to be why he wanted
to have this activist and journalist arrested. the details are absolutely remarkable. this plane was flying from athens in greece and was supposed to land in lithuania when the fighter jets came and forced it to divert to the capital of belarus, to minsk. that s when luggage was taken off and sniffer dogs. the journalist and activity was arrested. his name is roman protosevich. his work was key to showing some of the police brutality and heavy-handed tactics going on there as well and also to organize the protests. that seems to be why lukashenko wanted to get his hands on him. he could face torture right now at the handings of authorities an even the death penalty because he s on a terrorist list. the russians say they did everything according to international law.
intercept an irish passenger plane and force it to land. on the ground in the capitol minsk state security officials arrested one of the passengers, an opposition activist. european leaders have called it a hijacking and state terrorism. cbs s elizabeth palmer has the latest. this is the ryanair plane on the tarmac, arveg officials searched they defined roman protasevich, active in the movement opposed to belarus as strong nn president lukashenko. he and a hundred other passengers boarded the plane in athens bound for lithuanian lithuania but as it flew lieu belarus airspace it made a de tour to minsk. air force general andree gutter selfish said authorities told the pilot to diverse because of a security threat and they even scrambleed an escort fighter