Belarus minister responsible for illegal Ryanair flight diversion dies mysteriously

The Belarusian minister responsible for illegally diverting a Ryanair flight to arrest opposition journalist Raman Pratasevich has died mysteriously.

Aleksey Avramenko died suddenly on July 4 at the age of 46, according to state news agency Belta, which cited government information.

The agency has not reported a cause of death.

Avramenko was the country’s Minister of Transport and Communications, and in that position he was behind the illegal diversion of passenger flight FR4978 to Minsk Airport on May 23, 2021 while it was traveling from Athens, Greece to Vilnius, Lithuania.

Opposition activist and journalist Protasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega were arrested by authorities during the move, widely condemned in the West.

Avramenko was born in Minsk in 1977. He worked in road construction and maintenance before holding various positions in the Ministry of Transport.

He became deputy transport minister in 2013 and then first deputy minister in 2019, before finally taking the highest position in the ministry in 2019.

This meant that in 2021 he was the country’s minister of transportation, reporting directly to Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko when the FR4978 incident happened.

Pratasevich ran a Telegram messaging app channel that was widely used by participants in mass protests against the disputed August 2020 elections that earned the authoritarian Lukashenko a sixth term in office, which he assumed in 1994.

The channel Nexta is one of the most famous opposition channels in Belarus.

Together with its sister channel, Nexta Live, it has 1.4 million followers.

The protests, which lasted for months, were the longest and largest demonstration of opposition to Lukashenko since he came to power in 1994.

Belarusian authorities responded to the demonstrations with brutality, arresting more than 35,000 people, beating thousands by police, and shutting down dozens of media outlets and non-governmental organizations.

Pratasevich was living in exile at the time, but he and his girlfriend were arrested when their Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was ordered to land in Belarus’ capital, Minsk.

Belarusian authorities said there was a bomb threat, but later said no explosives were found on board.

The incident sparked outrage in Western countries – including the UK, the EU and NATO – with officials condemning it as a hijacking.

Avramenko was the country’s Minister of Transport and Communications, and in that position he was behind the illegal diversion of passenger flight FR4978 to Minsk Airport on May 23, 2021 while it was traveling from Athens, Greece to Vilnius, Lithuania. Opposition activist and journalist Roman Protasevich (pictured, June 3, 2021) and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega were arrested by authorities during the action widely condemned in the West

Belarusian police arrest journalist Raman Pratasevich, center, in Minsk, Belarus, March 26, 2017

Pratasevich was charged with organizing unrest and plotting to take over power. The court sentenced him to eight years in prison in May 2022.

The founder of the Nexta Telegram channel, Stsiapan Putsila, and another editor of the channel, Yan Rudzik, were sentenced in absentia to 20 and 19 years in prison respectively. Both remain in exile.

After the arrest, Pratasevich went on Belarusian state television several times to confess, denounce the opposition and apologize to Mr. Lukashenko – appearances that critics say were made under duress.

Both Pratasevich and his girlfriend, Sapega, were later released and placed under house arrest.

In May 2022, Sapega was found guilty and sentenced to six years in prison.

Three days later, a message on a Telegram channel announced as owned by Pratasevich tried to distance him from Sapega – saying that they broke up a long time ago and that he had married someone else.

It could not be independently verified whether the message was freely written by Pratasevich or any of the claims it contained, or whether it was forcibly obtained.

Sapega, meanwhile, petitioned the Belarusian authorities to extradite her to her home country, Russia, to serve the remainder of her sentence. The Belarusian government agreed. It was not immediately clear when that would happen.

Belarusian opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called the sentences of Pratasevich, Putsila and Rudzik “disregard for justice” on the part of “the Belarusian regime”, which conducted “a bogus trial”.

Belarusian authorities said there was a bomb threat on the plane (pictured, May 23, 2021), but later said no explosives were found on board. The incident sparked outrage in Western countries, with officials condemning it as tantamount to hijacking

Ms Tsikhanouskaya said in a tweet that Pratasevich has been “the hostage of the regime since the Ryanair (plane) hijack”.

In May of this year, Pratasevich announced that he had received a presidential pardon, the Belarusian state news agency reported at the time. “I literally signed all the relevant documents that I was pardoned. Of course, this is just great news,” Raman Pratasevich told Belta news agency.

Human rights group Viasna says nearly 1,500 people in Belarus have been put behind bars for opposition activities.

So is the founder of Viasna, Ales Bialiatski, one of the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in May.