LUGANSK, June 1. /TASS/. The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) has asked Belarus to send blogger Roman Protasevich, who was earlier detained in the country, to the republic to conduct an investigative reenactment procedure, spokesperson for the office Inna Semenova said on Tuesday.
"The investigation into a criminal case revealed that Protasevich was involved in the shelling of civilians in Donbass and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. In light of this, the LPR Prosecutor General’s Office is appealing to the law enforcement agencies of Belarus to grant us an opportunity to conduct investigative procedures with the suspect Protasevich in the LPR," she said.
Earlier, the LPR launched a criminal case against Protasevich on suspicion that he voluntarily joined the Azov Battalion outlawed in the LPR and later took part in hostilities in Donbass between the summer of 2014 and the winter of 2015 as a deputy commander of the second shock and assault squadron of the battalion.
On May 23, a Vilnius-bound Ryanair plane that took off from Athens made an emergency landing at Minsk International Airport after a reported bomb threat. A MiG-29 fighter was scrambled to escort the plane. After the landing, the airliner was inspected and no bomb was found on board. The Belarusian Investigative Committee opened a criminal case into a false bomb alert. Among the passengers on that flight was Roman Protasevich, one of the co-founders of the Nexta Telegram channel, which Minsk recognized as an extremist entity. Protasevich was detained by law enforcement agents once the plane had landed in the Belarusian capital. On the evening of May 23, the plane left Minsk International Airport and continued on to its final destination of Vilnius.