“International outrage mounted on Monday as new details emerged about a brazen operation by the country’s strongman leader to divert a Ryanair passenger jet and arrest a dissident Belarusian journalist traveling on board. Michael O’Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, an Irish-based low-cost carrier, called the operation, which was directed by President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, a ‘state-sponsored hijacking'” New York Times reports.
“Leaders from the European Union were expected to meet Monday night to discuss possible penalties. Sofia Sapega, the girlfriend of the arrested journalist, Roman Protasevich, was also detained when the plane landed in Minsk on Sunday after a bogus bomb threat during its flight from Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania, her university in the Lithuanian capital said. Ms. Sapega, a Russian citizen, was detained at the Minsk airport along with Mr. Protasevich under ‘groundless and made-up conditions,’ the European Humanities University in Vilnius said in a statement demanding her release. There was no word Monday morning from the Belarusian authorities on their whereabouts.”