Belarus accused of diverting the flight to arrest the activist.
Belarus has been accused of "hijacking" a civilian airliner by forcing a Ryanair passenger flight to land in the country using a fake bomb threat so that authorities could arrest a prominent critic of its authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
The Ryanair flight was passing through Belarus' airspace while traveling from Athens to Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, when it was diverted to Minsk for an emergency landing because of the phony bomb threat. A Belarusian MiG-29 fighter jet was sent to intercept the plane and escorted it to the airport. On the ground, security agents arrested Roman Protasevich, founder of the social media news channel NEXTA, which played a crucial role in the protests last summer.
The extraordinary move triggered a furious reaction from European countries, which have accused Lukashenko of forcing down a European airliner as part of a pre-planned operation to seize Protasevich.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, called it "utterly unacceptable" and warned that those responsible must be sanctioned.
"The outrageous and illegal behaviour of the regime in Belarus will have consequences. Those responsible for the #Ryanair hijacking must be sanctioned. Journalist Roman Protasevich must be released immediately," von der Leyen wrote on Twitter, saying a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday would discuss what actions to take.
Other countries, including France and Britain, lined up to condemn Belarus' actions, and there were mounting calls for punitive steps to be taken against Lukashenko.
Poland's prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the Ryanair flight had been "hijacked" and condemned it as a "reprehensible act of state terrorism". Micheál Martin, prime minister of Ireland called it "unprecedented" and said it must be addressed by the EU foreign ministers meeting.
Julie Fisher, the U.S. ambassador to Belarus who is based in Vilnius, said the diversion of the flight was "dangerous and abhorrent," saying it showed Lukashenko's contempt for the international community.
After several hours in Minsk, the Ryanair flight took off and landed in Vilnius on Sunday evening. Lithuania's prime minister was at the airport to meet the arriving passengers, who described to local media how they disembarked from the plane and were searched by Belarusian security officials. Videos posted by passengers showed Belarusian soldiers with sniffer dogs examining their luggage on the ground.
Raselle Grigoryeva, a 37 year-old Lithuanian on the plane told ABC News that the crew had not explained why the plane was being diverted to Minsk. She said the passengers were caught by surprise when the plane suddenly plunged sharply.
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