Polish court seeks international arrest for Belarus officials over Ryanair hijacking
While flying over Belarus, a Polish Ryanair plane was forced to land under the false pretext of a threat. This allowed the local authorities to arrest opposition journalist Raman Pratasevich. The Polish prosecutor's office will pursue international arrest warrants for Belarusian officials for hijacking the plane, Polish media reports.
On 4 September, the District Court in Warsaw decided to arrest the former head of Belarusian air navigation, Leonid Churo, the shift supervisor at Belarusian air traffic control, Yevgeny Tsyganov, and a high-ranking officer of the Belarusian KGB.
The trio has been charged by the National Prosecutor’s Office with an act of terrorism. This pertains to the deceptive takeover of the Ryanair plane and the unlawful deprivation of freedom of the passengers and crew members. Investigators are planning to issue international arrest warrants for the men. There are also plans to pursue them using an Interpol Red Notice.
The Polish investigation concerns events from 23rd May 2021, when a Ryanair plane (owned by its subsidiary Ryanair Sun) flying from Athens to Vilnius was forced to make an emergency landing at Minsk airport. The action was carried out by Belarusian authorities to detain and arrest Belarusian opposition figure Raman Pratasevich who was in Greece with his partner for a short vacation.
When the plane entered Belarusian airspace, the crew was contacted by air traffic controller Oleg. His words are reported by Polish newspaper "Gazeta Wyborcza":
- We have information from security services. You have a bomb on board. It will be activated over Vilnius - Oleg said and instructed the plane to land at Minsk airport.
It later emerged that Oleg was instructed to issue this statement by his superiors and a Belarusian KGB officer who were present in the control tower that day.
Raman Pratasevich quickly realised that he was the target. - Here I face the death penalty - he reportedly told his fellow passengers. Pratasevich was an activist and journalist for the opposition Belarusian portal Nexta, which documents the actions of Alexander Lukashenko’s regime. He was already being watched at the airport in Athens, where a man tried to take a photo of his documents. From Greece, he was returning to Vilnius, where he lived after fleeing Belarus.
Oleg escapes from Belarus through Georgia
The Polish prosecutor’s office learned what happened in the control tower from Oleg. He testified that the aforementioned three men were involved in the plane hijacking and appeared there shortly before the plane entered Belarusian airspace.
Oleg quickly suspected that there was no terrorist threat and that the entire operation was about arresting someone on board. That’s why he recorded his conversations with his superiors using the dictaphone on his phone. At the same time, he followed their orders and relayed the fabricated message to the plane's pilot. He would later tell Polish investigators everything, excluding him from being charged.
As reported by "Gazeta Wyborcza," the pilot did not immediately comply with the instructions to land in Minsk. He wanted more information, including how the bomb threat was known. Finally, after 17 minutes of conversation, he decided to land in Belarus.
When Raman Pratasevich realised the operation aimed to arrest him, he tried to delete data from his phone and laptop. He then handed the devices to his partner on board. However, Belarusian authorities seized the equipment after landing. Both Pratasevich and his partner were detained.
After the international investigation began, Belarusian authorities urged Oleg to fabricate his report on the situation in the control tower. Oleg, however, decided to flee the country. Under the guise of a vacation, he took his family to Georgia.
As "Gazeta Wyborcza" reports, in June 2021, Oleg reached Poland, and in early July, he contacted Polish authorities. He had his phone with him, which contained recordings of all conversations. "The controller's testimony - alongside the recordings - becomes a key piece of evidence in the investigation by ABW and the National Prosecutor’s Office," reports "Gazeta Wyborcza".
After his arrest, Raman Pratasevich confessed to his charges, was sentenced to 8 years in prison, and was later pardoned by Alexander Lukashenko. The same happened to his partner, Sofia Sapega, who was sentenced to 6 years in prison.
ICAO: False bomb threat
As early as 2022, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Council, in its report, acknowledged that the evidence presented to it unequivocally indicated that the actions of the Belarusian authorities violated international civil aviation regulations (the Chicago Convention and the Montreal Convention) and that the Belarusian authorities deliberately communicated a false bomb threat to force the Ryanair plane to land in Minsk, thereby endangering passengers.
