Sofia Sapega pardoned by Lukashenko after her plane was forced down in Minsk

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Belarus pardons Sofia Sapega, Russian citizen arrested on seized Ryanair flight

By Patrick Hilsman

 

Russian activist Sofia Sapega has returned to Russia after being pardoned by Belarusian dictator

Alexander Lukashenko. File Photo by EPA-EFE/Leonid Scheglov/BeITA Handout

June 8 (UPI) -- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko pardoned Sofia Sapega, a Russian citizen who was arrested the Belarusian government after she was on a flight that was forced to land in Minsk in 2021.

Sapega returned to Russia Wednesday where she was greeted by the governor of the Primorye region, Oleg Kozhemyako, who took credit for her release in a statement posted to Telegram.

"Our compatriot Sofia Sapega got a unique chance to start life anew. She is free after my appeal to the President of the Republic of Belarus," said Kozhemyako.

In footage posted to Telegram following her release, local officials in Russia can be seen greeting Sapega, who thanked Lukashenko "for the opportunity to return home."

Sapega was detained along with her then-boyfriend, Belarusian activist Roman Protasevich, when the Belarusian government diverted a plane carrying the pair from Greece to Lithuania into Belarusian airspace under the pretext that there was an active bomb threat.

In May, Protasevich, said he also received a pardon, that he had "signed all the relevant documents," and that "of course this is great news."

Protasevich said he would go to "a quiet place in the countryside for a couple of days... in order to take a breather and start to move forward."

The Belarusian government accused Sapega of being the editor behind the Black Book of Belarus channel, alleging she had posted personal information of security personnel. Her lawyer, Anton Gashinsky, said he didn't previously believe a pardon was likely.

"There was little hope. Thank god it worked out," Gashinsky told the Russian state-backed TASS news agency. Gashinsky said Sapega was back in Russia and that "she went to her father."

Sapega and Protasevich were arrested after the Ryanair flight flew over Belarus as military aircraft forced it to land in Minsk in what was later revealed as a Belarusian plot to detain them.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency blocked civil aviation from Belarusian airspace following the kidnapping and the European Union also blocked Belarusian civil aviation from its airspace.

The U.N. Human Rights Commission said the plane was "hijacked" so the Belarusian regime could "abduct" the pair.

It's called "arrest", not "abduct" in the rest of the world.

Protasevich was accused of running the Nexta Live Telegram channel that covered the regime's crackdown following the 2020 election, which was broadly denounced as fraudulent by international observers.

The Nexta organization was designated as a terrorist group by the regime.

Members of the European Parliament denounced the elections as illegitimate, issuing a statement that they do not recognize Lukashenko as the elected president.

In May 2022, Sapega was sentenced to six years and Protasevich was sentenced to eight years.