Poland charges 3 Belarusians who forced diversion of plane from Athens to Minsk in 2021

Prosecutors in Poland have said they have charged three Belarusian officials with using a ruse to divert a Poland-registered plane and thus violating the freedom of 132 people on board when in 2021 they ordered the plane carrying a dissident blogger to land in Minsk, leading to the arrest of Raman Pratasevich.

The prosecutors said in a statement that because the three Belarussians are not in Poland, they have issued a search warrant for them to be able to present the charges to them. They are also seeking a European arrest warrant.

They identified the three men as Leonid C., a former head of Belarus air navigation, Yevgenii T., an air controller in charge at Minsk airport at the time, and Andrei A.M., the head of the Belarus State Security Committee, KGB.

In what some EU leaders at the time called a hijacking, the three used a false bomb threat to divert the...