There isn’t a proof that Belarusian secret service brokers had been on board the Ryanair flight pressured to divert to Minsk on Sunday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis mentioned on Thursday.
Belarus made the flight heading from Greece to Lithuania land in its capital in response to an alleged bomb menace.
No bomb was discovered, however Roman Protasevich, a 26-year-old reporter and critic of longtime Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, was pulled off the aircraft and arrested by Belarusian authorities, alongside together with his girlfriend Sofia Sapega.
The incident sparked worldwide outrage and prompted the European Union to ban Belarusian planes from the bloc’s airspace in addition to urge EU airways to keep away from flying over the ex-Soviet state.
Each Belarus’s political opposition and Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary prompt that members of the nation’s KGB safety company, which nonetheless goes by its Soviet-era acronym, had been on board the flight.
However Mitsotakis informed Germany’s Bild newspaper that no proof had emerged to counsel that was the case.
“We have now no indication there have been KGB brokers or any safety service brokers on board the aircraft. None. Zero. And we investigated it very fastidiously,” Mitsotakis mentioned.
Lukashenko has dismissed the claims regarding safety brokers and defended Minsk’s pressured diversion of the aircraft, stating on Wednesday that he had acted legally and in accordance with worldwide norms.
Nonetheless, echoing criticism from different European leaders, Mitsotakis described the incident as an “an act of state-sponsored piracy” undertaken with the only goal of arresting Protasevich.
Bomb menace claims
Mitsotakis’s remarks got here amid rising doubt over Minsk’s claims relating to the alleged bomb menace.
Switzerland-based electronic mail supplier Proton Applied sciences AG mentioned on Thursday that the menace cited by Belarusian authorities was solely despatched after the Ryanair flight was diverted.
Belarusian authorities declare the menace had come from Hamas, however the Palestinian group has denied any involvement within the incident.
Lukashenko has additionally prompt the menace originated in Switzerland, however the Swiss authorities has denied having any information of it.
“We haven’t seen credible proof that the Belarusian claims are true,” Proton mentioned in an announcement.
“We’ll assist European authorities of their investigations upon receiving a authorized request.”
‘Assist me free my son’
Individually on Thursday, Protasevich’s dad and mom made an impassioned attraction for help over their son’s case.
“I wish to attraction to you as Roman’s mom. I would like you to listen to my cry, the cry of my soul, so that you could perceive how tough it’s for us proper now and the way we’ve discovered ourselves in an absurd state of affairs,” Natalia Protasevich, the reporter’s mom, informed reporters in Warsaw.
“I would like you to relay our attraction all over the place, all through the world, to authorities representatives, to EU international locations, to EU leaders, to US leaders: I’m interesting, I’m begging, assist me free my son.”
Protasevich’s father Dmitry in the meantime hailed his son as a “hero”.
“All by means of his life, he has fought for fact and he has relayed it to folks. That’s why Lukashenko has dedicated this horrible act,” he mentioned.
In a video posted on-line on Monday by Belarusian authorities, Protasevich mentioned he was in good well being and being held in a pretrial detention facility in Minsk.
He acknowledged having performed a job in mass anti-government rallies final 12 months, which adopted a disputed August election that handed Lukashenko a sixth time period in workplace.
It has been broadly speculated that Protasevich was talking below duress. His father has mentioned he believes the 26-year-old’s confession was pressured.
Minsk cracked down forcefully on final 12 months’s protests. The quantity of people that had been arrested for taking part within the rallies is known to be within the tens of hundreds.