A Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt from Minsk airport was suspended due to the threat of an imminent terrorist act. The press service of the airport quoted by Interfax said: «The mail address of the domestic airport received a message from unidentified people about the intention to commit an act of terrorism on Lufthansa flight LH1487 on the Minsk-Frankfurt route. The flight was supposed to take off at 2:20 pm. Boarding on this flight has been suspended, ”the statement reads.
The alarm came in the aftermath of the hijacking of the Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius on board Roman Protasevich, former director of the independent channel Nexta, voice of the Belarusian opposition disliked by the dictator Alexander Lukashenko. The journalist was arrested, as he is on the list of wanted people for “terrorism and extremism” compiled by the country’s authorities.
The leader-in-exile of the Belarusian opposition, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, spoke fiery words as the news began to ricochet on websites around the world. «The regime – he wrote on Twitter – forced the plane to land in Minsk to arrest the journalist and activist Raman Pratasevich. Who now risks the death penalty. We demand the immediate release of Raman, an investigation by the ICAO (the UN civil aviation agency, ed) and the application of sanctions against Belarus ».
Also yesterday, the Minsk airport stated that the plane landed after having sounded a bomb threat alert and that it was the pilots themselves who requested the landing. But according to the independent media Meduza, the head of communications at the international airport of Vilnius, Lina Beischene, instead said that on board the plane “there was a clash between a crew member and a passenger”. Hence the need to go ashore.
Once on the ground, the passengers were subjected to security checks and at that point the arrest for Protasevich was triggered. Who has lived in exile, together with the founder of Nexta, Stepan Putilo, since November 2020. The episode has sent the president of Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda into a rage, who has called it “abominable”.
The episode was harshly condemned in unison by the presidents of the EU Parliament, David Sassoli, the Ursula von der Leyen Commission, the Charles Michel Council and the EU High Representative Josep Borrell. And from all the major chancelleries, from Paris to Berlin, from London to Rome. With the Foreign Minister, Luigi di Maio, who expressed “firm condemnation” for the forced landing of the flight and asked for the immediate release of all passengers: “This is an unacceptable violation of international air navigation rules”.