Belarusian minister Alexei Abramenko, the man responsible for illegally diverting a Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius in order to arrest opposition journalist Raman Protasevic, has been found dead under unexplained circumstances.

The Belarusian minister died suddenly on July 4 at the age of 46, according to the state-run Belta news agency, which cited government information, but gave no indication of the cause of his death.

According to the Daily Mail, Abramenko was Minister of Transport and Communications of Belarus and from that position was behind the illegal diversion of passenger flight FR4978 to Minsk Airport on May 23, 2021, as it traveled from Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania.

Opposition activist and journalist Protasevic and his then-girlfriend Sofia Sapega were arrested by authorities in a move widely condemned by the West.

Abramenko was born in Minsk in 1977. He worked in road construction and maintenance before going on to hold several positions in the Ministry of Transport. He became deputy minister of transport in 2013 and then first deputy minister in 2019, before finally assuming the ministry’s top job in 2019.

Roman Protasevic ran a Telegram channel widely used by the Belarusian opposition to organize mass protests against the August 2020 electoral coup that gave Lukashenko a sixth term in power. The protests, which lasted for months, were the largest opposition demonstrations against Lukashenko since he took power in 1994. Belarusian authorities responded to the protests with a brutal crackdown in which more than 35,000 people were arrested, thousands were beaten by police and dozens of media outlets and non-governmental organizations were shut down.

Protasevic was living in exile at the time, but he and his girlfriend were arrested when the Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was ordered to land in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. At the time, Belarusian authorities said there was a bomb threat on the boat where Protasevic and his partner were. A little later they said that during checks nothing was detected. The incident sparked outrage in the West with officials saying the incident amounted to a hijacking.

Pratasevic was brought to trial on charges of organizing riots and conspiracy to seize power. The court sentenced him to eight years in prison in May 2022. For his part, the founder of the Nexta Telegram channel, Stsiapan Putsila, and another editor of the channel, Yan Rudzik, were sentenced in absentia to 20 and 19 years in prison, respectively. Both remain in exile.

After the arrest, Pratasevic appeared on Belarusian state television several times to confess, denounce the opposition and apologize to Lukashenko. In fact, his relatives and representatives of the opposition said that these statements were made following pressure from the Lukashenko government. It should be noted that both Protasevic and his partner were released and placed under house arrest.

Belarus

In May 2022, Protasevic’s partner was sentenced to six years in prison. However, she asked the authorities to extradite her to Russia to serve the rest of her sentence there. The Lukashenko government agreed but it was unclear when this might happen.

On the other hand, Sviatlana Tikhanovskaya, who is the leader of the exiled opposition, referring to the sentences of Protasevic, Puchila and Rudzik, spoke of “contempt of justice” on the part of the “Belarusian regime”, which conducted a “false trial”. Meanwhile, in May, Roman Protašević, according to Belta, announced that he had received a presidential pardon. “I literally just signed all the relevant documents that I was pardoned. This, of course, is simply wonderful news,” he said.

Human rights group Viasna says nearly 1,500 people have been jailed in Belarus in connection with opposition activities.