Pratasevich’s companion Sofia Sapega charged under 7 criminal aricles, case sent to prosecutors
The Belarusian Investigative Committee has completed the investigation into the criminal case against Russian citizen Sofia Sapega. Its materials have been handed over to the prosecutor’s office; then they will be submitted to court.
Sofia Sapega will remain under house arrest until the trial starts. In late June, she was placed under house arrest along with Raman Pratasevich. The arrestees are allegedly being held in a rented apartment.
She is charged under seven articles of the Criminal Code:
- committing intentional actions aimed at inciting social hatred (Art. 130-3);
- initiating and directing violence and threats of violence against a police officer (Art. 16-4 and Art. 364);
- initiating and directing influence on anemployee of law-enforcement bodies for the purpose of change of character of his lawful activity ( Art. 16-4 and Art. 365);
- initiating and directing violence and threats of violence, destruction, damage to property in relation to an official performing official duties (Art. 16-4 and Art. 366-1); organisation of a threat of murder, violence, destruction, damage to property in relation to judges and their relatives (Art. 16-4 and Art. 389);
- putting obstacles to a journalist’s legitimate professional activity, forcing them to refuse to spread information, which was committed with the use of violence (Art. 16-4 and Art. 198);
- intentional illegal collection and distribution of information about the private life and personal data of another person without their consent, which led to significant damage to the rights of the victim (Article 203-1).
On May 23, a Ryanair’s Boeing 737-8AS flying over Belarus was forced to land in Minsk by the local authorities claiming that they got the information about a bomb planted onboard. Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka personally gave the order; to ‘escort’ the passenger carrier, a MiG-29 fighter was scrambled. It should be noted that the plane was not far from the Belarusian-Lithuanian air border at that moment; it was at a distance of 90 km from Vilnius and about 200 km – from Minsk. Emigre journalist Raman Pratasevich and his companion Sofia Sapega, were arrested by security services in the Belarusian capital city. Apparently, the operation of forcibly landing the Ryanair airplane was deliberately planned and performed by pro-Lukashenka secret services.
In response, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary slammed Belarusian officials, labelling the steps taken by them as ‘state-sponsored hijacking’. The outrageous incident has triggered a mighty international row. Politicians, diplomats, international organisations denounced the actions of the Lukashenka regime. In the wake of the controversial situation, the Council of the European Union decided to strengthen the existing restrictive measures in view of the situation in Belarus by introducing a ban on the overflight of EU airspace and on access to EU airports by Belarusian carriers of all kinds.
On June 24, the European Union imposed targeted sanctions on a number of pillars of the Belarusian economy in order to respond, among other things, to the forced landing of the Ryanair flight in Minsk and the related detention of Pratasevich an Sapega. Three days earlier, the EU approved the fourth package of personal sanctions against the Belarusian regime.
