C’is an unprecedented court decision, in a context of tension between the United States and Russia, an ally of Belarus. On Thursday, January 20, American justice indicted Belarusian government officials, accused of having diverted a Ryanair plane in 2021 in order to arrest an opposition journalist.
Seven months after the spectacular diversion to Minsk, on May 23, of a flight linking Athens to Vilnius by a Belarusian fighter plane, federal justice in New York has charged four Belarusians with “conspiracy to perpetrate an act of piracy” . On board Ryanair flight 4978 were four US nationals and more than a hundred other passengers.
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A “scandalous” plot
Supported by the FBI and the New York police (NYPD), Manhattan prosecutors accused in a joint press release Belarusian government officials Leonid Mikalaevich Churo, Oleg Kazyuchits, and two others, with incomplete or unknown identities, of having participated “in central way” to the plot. The four men reside in Belarus and are therefore considered at large. Leonid Mikalaevich Churo and Oleg Kazyuchits are Director and Deputy Director of Belarusian Civil Aviation. The other two are officers of the Belarusian State Security Service.
Manhattan Federal Prosecutor Damian Williams has pledged to bring to justice those who participated in “this outrageous conspiracy” to commit an act of piracy. He denounced “a violation of international rules and American criminal law, but also the endangerment of four Americans and other innocent passengers”. On May 23, 2021, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko raised an international outcry by dispatching a fighter jet to intercept Ryanair flight FR4978.
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A context of extreme international tension
Claiming the presence of a bomb on board, Belarusian air traffic control had forced the aircraft to land in Minsk in order to arrest a dissident journalist, Roman Protassevich, and his companion, Sofia Sapega, who were on board. In their press release, the federal justice system and the FBI accuse the four Belarusian officials of having developed this false bomb alert project. For its deputy director Michael Driscoll, “the FBI and (its) foreign partners will continue to hold accountable those whose actions directly threaten the lives of our nationals and who jeopardize the stability of our national security”.
Last June, just a month after the plane was diverted, Western countries coordinated to put pressure on President Lukashenko with individual sanctions and, a first for the European Union, economic sanctions. The EU, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada had together decided to punish dozens of personalities and companies linked to power in Minsk. These first indictments Thursday by the American justice come in a context of extreme international tension between Moscow, support of Belarus, and Washington, about Ukraine.
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