A woman detained after her Ryanair flight was forced to land in Belarus last May has been sentenced to six years in prison.
Sofia Sapega and her activist boyfriend were flying from Greece to Lithuania when the plane was surrounded by a fighter jet and forced to crash due to an alleged bomb threat.
Western countries have said Belarus’s actions are similar to air piracy, and the European Union has banned the country’s airlines from entering its airports and airspace.
She was convicted Friday on charges of inciting social hatred. Her lawyer said they would ask President Vladimir Putin to intervene, as she is a Russian citizen.
Ms Sapega ran a channel in the Telegram news app, which published data on government and military personnel involved in the brutal crackdown on mass protests in Belarus in 2020.
The unrest came after President Alexander Lukashenko, a key ally of Putin, won a controversial sixth term, which many considered falsified due to 80% of the votes he claimed to have won.
Roman Protasevich, Ms. Sapega’s boyfriend, was the editor of another telegram channel, Nexta, which helped organize the protests in the capital, Minsk.
He was placed under house arrest in June last year, but is not yet on trial.
Up to 200,000 people a day protested in Minsk during the demonstrations, which lasted several months.
Image: Roman Protasevic (left) and Sapega appeared in videos of detention after their arrest in May 2021.
They called for free and fair elections in a bid to overthrow the man whom some describe as Europe’s last dictator – President Lukashenko has ruled the country since 1994.
Tens of thousands of people were detained during the demonstrations, and there were widespread reports of beatings and “rescue squads” gathering people in vans.
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