A belarusian court sentenced on Wednesday eight years in prison for Roman Protasévicha dissident former journalist arrested in 2021 after the interception of a commercial plane that sparked outrage and sanctions from Western countries.
According to the public press agency belta, Stepan Putilo and Yan Rudiktwo other defendants exiled abroad and founders of the opposition media Nextwere sentenced in absentia to 20 and 19 years in prison for having called to commit “acts of terrorism”.
Protasevich, accused of challenging the Belarusian regime in the massive anti-government protests and who was arrested when the dictator Alexander Lukashenko ordered to divert a plane in 2021, denounced last week that it had been used by the opposition in exile and demanded not to be sentenced to prison.
“I was just used”he pointed out in a judicial hearing in which he used his right to the last word before the reading of the sentence this Wednesday, according to the opposition portal zerkaloregistered abroad.
“First in warsawThen in Lithuania. And then they just kicked me out. I sincerely regret that my actions have had such consequences,” said Protasevich, who began collaborating with the justice system shortly after his arrest, initially on suspicion of torture.
The journalist maintained that it was a “big mistake” to try to achieve “changes through a division in society” and justified his opposition to the Lukashenko regime on the grounds that it was very “young and stupid”.
“My sincere wish was change the lives of our people and our country for the better, but I was very wrong, I chose the wrong path,” he said, while admitting “openly the political defeat,” always according to Zerkalo.
He promised that he would “work for the benefit of society and contribute to the development of Belarus.”
The journalist is accused of incite hatred and social discordorganizing riots, organizing activities of a terrorist organization, creating an extremist formation and being part of its leadership, publicly defaming and insulting Lukashenko, conspiring to seize power unconstitutionally, and financing extremist activities, among other charges.
Protasévich, 27, is charged in the case Nextan information platform that he came to direct and that played a prominent role in the protests that spread through Belarus in August 2020 after the presidential elections in which Lukashenko claimed a sixth term fraudulentlyaccording to the opposition and the West.
The platform became the main coordination and information tool for dissidents in the country and managed to evade regime surveillance using social media from Warsaw with a team of just four people.
Only Protasevich appeared at the trial, who was arrested on May 23 when Lukashenko ordered the flight to be diverted to Minsk ryanair in which he was traveling with his then girlfriend, the Russian Sofía Sapega, from Athens to Vilnius, on the grounds of an alleged bomb threat.
The journalist was placed under house arrest after going to pretrial detention after admitting in a suspicious interview on his country’s public television to having organized the riots that broke out in the summer of 2020.
International human rights organizations and the Belarusian opposition denounced signs of torture on Protasevich’s body.
Sapega, who was sentenced in 2021 to six years in prison for her collaboration with her then partner, is in the process of being extradited to Russia.
(With information from EFE and AFP)
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Source-www.infobae.com