It was a clear act of state-sponsored terrorism. An Irish passenger plane from the Irish budget airline Ryan Air, while on its way from Athens to Vilnius, was forced to land in the Belarusian capital Minsk on May 23 only minutes before it was due to leave Belarus’ airspace.
Flimsy claims by Belarusian air traffic controller that a bomb was on board quickly turned out to be a hoax cooked up by the dictatorial regime of the country’s long time leader Alexander Lukashenko. In reality, Lukashenko wanted Belarusian journalist and opposition activist Roman Protasevic (Raman Pratasevich in Belarusian), who was on board the flight, to be forcibly brought to Minsk.