Raman Pratasevich

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 Belarusian leader said "ill-wishers" are "trying to strangle Belarus" in his first speech since a commercial flight was intercepted and a critical blogger arrested.

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko hit out at Western powers on Wednesday, saying that his country's "ill-wishers" are "trying to strangle Belarus."

They called on the Council to ban overflight of EU airspace by Belarusian airlines and prevent access of their planes to EU airports

The European Union agreed May 24 to impose sanctions on Belarus, including banning its airlines from using the airspace and airports of the 27-nation bloc, amid fury over the forced diversion of a passenger jet to arrest an opposition journalist.

Belarusian Transport Ministry announced that Hamas was behind the bomb threat that allegedly forced a Ryanair flight to land in Minsk on May 23, reports the Belarusian news.

Upon request by High Representative Josep Borrell, the Secretary-General of the European External Action Service, Stefano Sannino, summoned the Belarus Ambassador to the EU, Aleksandr Mikhnevich, to condemn the inadmissible step of the Belarusian authorities, who forced a civilian plane to perform an emergency landing in Minsk and detained its passenger Raman Pratasevich, an independent Belarus