Belarus sentences Sofia Sapega, dissident’s plane arrest girlfriend, to 6 years in jail
- Russian Sapega and her Belarusian boyfriend Roman Protasevich were detained in May 2021 after their flight was forced to land in Minsk, Belarus
- Blogger Protasevich fled Belarus in 2019; he was an editor at the Poland-based Nexta Live channel, which is openly hostile to Belarus leader Lukashenko and played an important role in 2020 opposition protests
A Belarusian court on Friday sentenced Sofia Sapega, the girlfriend of a dissident detained after their commercial flight was forced to land in Belarus last year, to six years in prison for inciting social hatred, the Vyasna rights group said.
The 24-year-old Russian citizen was flying with her Belarusian boyfriend Roman Protasevich, a dissident blogger critical of his nation’s leader Alexander Lukashenko, on a flight from Greece to Lithuania in May 2021 when it was diverted to Minsk by Belarusian authorities.
Belarus said at the time it had ordered the plane to land after an anonymous tip-off that there was a bomb on board. The bomb threat turned out to be false, and Protasevich and Sapega were immediately detained.
News of the flight diversion prompted international outrage and led the European Union and United States to impose more sanctions on Belarus.
“I am sorry for Sofia and her family. No one should suffer from dictatorship,” exiled Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya wrote on Twitter after Friday’s verdict.
Russian opposition figures criticised their country for not intervening in Sapega’s case despite claims it is protecting Russians abroad, one of the reasons Moscow has used to justify its military campaign in Ukraine.