Days after Belarus shocked the world by forcibly diverting a Ryanair flight, authorities in that country remain mum about the fate of the journalist they arrested when the plane landed.
Journalist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, are now in Okrestina – a notorious prison in Minsk.
On Sunday Belarus used the bomb alert, which turned out to be fictitious, to divert the flight, which was en route from Greece to Lithuania.
When it landed in Minsk, the dissident journalist and his girlfriend were arrested.
Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said comments by Belarus on the matter were “false and inaccurate”.
He said the plane had been “unlawfully diverted under false pretenses”.
Protasevich’s mother has appealed to the UN to help free her son whom she fears the regime will harm.
Belarus has been unstable since President Alexander Lukashenko won a sixth term in an August 2020 disputed vote that sparked months of protests.
The EU describes the forced landing as a “hijack” and members have mooted punitive sanctions against Belarus.
However, strongman Lukashenko insists diverting the Ryanair flight was the right thing to do because there was “a bomb threat”.
He accused Pratasevich and his associates of working with foreign spy agencies to “organise a massacre and a bloody rebellion in Belarus.”
There is no new information on the condition of the jailed journalist and his girlfriend.
