In Belarus, a court "sentenced" the former editor-in-chief of the NEXTA Telegram channel to eight years in prison

In Belarus, the court has announced the "verdicts" in the case of the editors of the NEXTA Telegram channel. Former editor-in-chief Raman Pratasyevich was sentenced to up to eight years in a corrective labor colony.

Radio Liberty of Belarus reported this.

Raman Pratasyevich was accused of conspiracy against the authorities.

Two other editors, Stsiapan Putsila (known as Stsiapan Svetlov) and Yan Rudzik, were "sentenced" to 20 and 19 years in prison respectively. They were "sentenced" in absentia. 

Raman Pratasyevich was detained in May 2021. For this purpose, the Ryanair plane he was flying on from Athens to Vilnius landed in Belarus due to an alleged terrorist threat on board. The fact that there was no such threat was officially recognised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. The landing of the plane was carried out at the request of the Belarusian special services to detain the activist.

Together with Pratasyevich, his then-girlfriend, a Russian, Sofiya Sapega, who also ran channels opposed to the Belarusian authorities, was detained. Earlier, the court sentenced her to six years in prison. Sapega applied for a pardon, which was rejected by the self-proclaimed President of Belarus, Alyaksandar Lukashenka.

In early January 2022, Pratasyevich announced that he had entered into a plea deal with the investigation and was released from house arrest, which he had been under since June 2021.