A Belarusian journalist who was arrested after being hauled off a Ryanair plane that was forced to land in Minsk almost two years ago was sentenced on Wednesday to eight years in jail.
FILE PHOTO:Opposition blogger and activist Roman Protasevich, who is accused of participating in an unsanctioned protest at the Kuropaty preserve, arrives for a court hearing in Minsk, Belarus April 10, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer/File PhotoMay 3 - A Belarusian journalist who was arrested after being hauled off a Ryanair plane that was forced to land in Minsk almost two years ago was sentenced on Wednesday to eight years in jail on charges of conspiring against the state.
Roman Protasevich, 27, was found guilty of a range of offences including organising mass disturbances, inciting acts of terrorism and slandering President Alexander Lukashenko, the Belta state news agency said. He had worked as a journalist at the news outlet Nexta, which reported extensively on mass protests against Lukashenko in 2020 following an election that the opposition and Western governments denounced as rigged.
Nexta's founder Stsiapan Putsila and former editor Yan Rudik were sentenced in absentia by the same court to 20 and 19 years respectively. Belarus declared Nexta a "terrorist organisation" last year. The circumstances of Protasevich's arrest in May 2021 prompted international outrage and triggered European Union
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