Belarusian blogger’s Roman Protasevich was escorted away at Minsk airport.
As Roman Protasevich’s Ryanair flight began descending towards Minsk, the 26-year-old Belarusian opposition blogger grew frantic, giving his phone and laptop to his girlfriend and pleading with a flight attendant to stop the plane from landing.
“Don’t do this, they will kill me, I am a refugee,” a fellow passenger described him as saying. “We must, we have no choice,” the attendant reportedly replied.
Soon, a visibly trembling Protasevich, who had spent much of last summer managing Telegram channels broadcasting mass protests against the Belarus leader, Alexander Lukashenko, was led away as the plane stood on the tarmac. “I’m facing the death penalty here,” he said. His girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, was also detained.
Belarusian authorities forced Protasevich’s plane to divert by calling in a bomb threat then scrambled a MiG-29 to escort it down to Minsk airport.