The United States prosecutors in Manhattan have charged four officials of the government of Belarus with conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy in the forced landing of a European airliner in Minsk, where a prominent opposition journalist was seized.
The charge was contained in an indictment.
A fighter jet was sent to intercept a plane carrying 170 passengers from Athens to Vilnius,Lithuania, after a bomb threat was made. His seizure and the forcing down of the plane led to international outrage.
It is a image.
The flight was grounded and Roman Protasevich, a journalist, was taken into custody.
The indictment says that the bomb threat was a ruse by senior officials in the capital of Belarus.
The move was seen as a sign of how far Mr. Lukashenko was willing to go to crush dissent. After jailing or scaring away most potential opponents, he claimed easy re-election in 2020, a result widely seen as fraudulent, sparking months of mass protests.
The security forces of Mr. Lukashenko imprisoned thousands of people and suppressed the demonstrations. He tried to create a political crisis for NATO and the European Union by attracting thousands of Afghans to Belarus and urging them to cross illegally into Poland.
Mr. Lukashenko has been supported by his ally, President Putin of Russia, who is an antagonist of the West.
Mr. Lukashenko is not charged in the indictment. The names of the director general of the state air navigation authority, his deputy, and two officers of the country's security services were not known to prosecutors.
The defendants are based in the country of Belarus. They will not appear in a United States courtroom to answer the charges in the foreseeable future.
The indictment states that the defendants were critical participants in the conspiracy to divert the flight.
There was no bomb on the plane, according to the indictment. The threat was fabricated by the Belarusian government.
The indictment said that Mr. Churo personally communicated the false bomb threat to the staff at the air traffic control center, even before the flight took off from Athens.
The plan was to divert the plane to allow the security services to take Mr. Protasevich and his girlfriend into custody. He had been living in exile inLithuania and was wanted by the Belarusian government.
The indictment states that after the forced landing, the government of the country ordered air traffic authorities to cover up the bomb threat and the role of the security services.
The senior air traffic controller at the Minsk air traffic control center worked with the defendants.
According to Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, countries around the world have cooperated to keep air travel safe.
The lives of four U.S. citizens and scores of other innocent passengers are at risk because of a shocking conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy.
The federal government has the power to prosecute because Americans were on the plane.
Mr. Williams credited F.B.I. counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigators for the public explanation of what happened to the flight.
Since Mr. Protasevich and his girlfriend were taken into custody by the security agents, they have not been seen in public. Mr. Protasevich confessed to taking part in organizing mass unrest in a video released after his arrest.
Mr. Protasevich praised Mr. Lukashenko, who he had previously called a dictator and compared to Hitler.
The charges were announced by Mr. Williams along with the Justice Department and the Commissioner of the New York Police Department.
Richard Pérez- Pea was a contributor.
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