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Crisis in Belarus

Minsk court dismisses complaint over detention of Russian national Sofia Sapega

The hearing was held without the detained Russian woman

Sofia Sapega Telegram Channel "Zheltye Slivy"/Reuters TV via REUTERS

Sofia Sapega

© Telegram Channel "Zheltye Slivy"/Reuters TV via REUTERS

MINSK, May 31. /TASS/. The Minsk City Court on Monday dismissed the complaint filed over the detention of Russian citizen Sofia Sapega, TASS reports from the courtroom.

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"[The court] hereby rules to dismiss the complaint of the defense attorney, lawyer Filanovich, relating to Sofia Sapega <…>. The ruling is final and cannot be appealed," the judge said.

The hearing was held without the detained Russian woman.

Her lawyer, Alexander Filanovich, told reporters that the defense would file a complaint about Sapega’s arrest. "We will also look into who detained her and when. We have no such information," he said.

Sapega is expected to be indicted later on Monday.

Sapega’s detention

On May 23, Sapega was apprehended at Minsk International Airport together with Roman Protasevich, one of the co-founders of the Nexta Telegram channel, which Minsk deems to be an extremist entity, after an emergency landing of a Ryanair flight. In a video uploaded to the Internet several days later, Sapega admitted that she served as an editor of the Black Book of Belarus Telegram channel, which doxed Belarusian police officers. In April, this Telegram channel was declared to be an extremist entity by Gomel’s Zheleznodorozhny District Court.

On May 30, Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei, in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper, said that a Belarusian court would decide Sapega’s fate once the investigation of her case is completed.

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