The EU member has been probing the case as a Polish-registered plane was used for the Athens-to-Vilnius trip in May which made an emergency touchdown in Minsk over an alleged bomb danger.
Poland stated Friday adhering to an examination that Belarusian safety and security solutions were behind the diversion of a Ryanair trip that resulted in the apprehension of a resistance reporter onboard.
The airplane was carrying Roman Protasevich, a banished co-founder of a preferred resistance Telegram network, as well as his Russian partner, Sofia Sapega. The two were instantly apprehended in Minsk and also stay under home apprehension.
Poland’s special services prepared a discussion for reporters including air traffic control recordings and also other findings from the investigation by prosecutors and also the ABW counterintelligence firm.
“We have provided you with proof and other truths which clearly indicate that the hijacking of the Ryanair plane was an operation by Belarusian special services targeted at detaining a challenger of the political program,” Stanislaw Zaryn, representative for the Polish services, informed reporters.
The narrator of the presentation stated “a (Belarusian) KGB officer provided orders to the air traffic controller in the tower in Minsk, according to recordings safeguarded by the ABW.”
Zaryn had actually claimed in a declaration previously that the KGB officer “was present in the procedures area during the job of the air-traffic control tower.”
“It was the policeman that offered commands as well as made decisions concerning touchdown in Minsk. At the very same time, the KGB police officer remained in phone call with a person to whom he reported what was occurring with the plane,” he included.
“It must be highlighted that taking control over a website traffic control tower by a special solutions representative is something unprecedented, going beyond guidelines and also technique.”
Zaryn included a tweet that the verdict of the examination was especially based on “the testimony of a witness that was present at the air traffic control service tower in Minsk.”
The New York Times reported this week that an air traffic controller existing in the tower had actually defected and was sharing what he understood with Polish private investigators.
The diversion of the plane stimulated a global protest and also led the European Union to impose assents on Belarus.
The EU believes that Minsk consequently sought to strike back for the sanctions by engineering the Belarus border situation which has actually seen thousands of mostly Middle Eastern travelers go across or attempt to cross the bloc’s eastern border right into Latvia, Lithuania or Poland considering that the summertime.
Belarus refutes this and has actually prompted the EU to take in the migrants.
