MINSK: In what is being called as a 'state-sponsored hijacking'  26 years old Belarusian journalist Roman Protasevich was arrested after an extraordinary diversion of his Ryanair flight he was travelling on from Greece, and forced to land in Minsk on Sunday.

Media reports said that the Ryanair commercial flight from Athens, Greece to Vilnius in Lithuania was intercepted by a fighter jet and diverted to Belarus in order to arrest Protasevich and his friend travelling onboard on the orders of President Alexander Lukashenko.

Ryanair said that Belarusian air traffic controllers had told the crew there was a bomb threat against the passenger aircraft as it was crossing through Belarus airspace on Sunday and ordered it to land at Minsk National Airport. Soon a  Belarusian MiG-29 fighter jet was scrambled to escort the plane.

Protasevich was among more than 100 passengers on board a flight from Athens, wearing a dark top and with his hands tightly clasped in front of him, he was made to deboard possibly arrested after which he was taken to a police station in Minsk.

Along with Protasevich another passenger Sophia Sapega, a 23-year-old student travelling with him, was also detained, and the aircraft was later allowed to continue its journey to Lithuania.

The arrest of the dissident journalist has been strongly condemned by the United Kingdom government, the United States as well as European nations. The European Union agreed Monday to impose sanctions against Belarus, including banning its airlines from using the airspace and airports of the 27-nation bloc. The EU leaders also demanded the immediate release of Pratasevich.

So who is Roman Protasevich?

Protasevich who worked in the Belarusian media as a journalist studied journalism at Belarusian State University until he was expelled in 2018 later accused of participating in an unauthorized event in Kurapaty, but he managed his innocence to prove in court.

Protasevich is a co-founder and a former editor of the NEXTA channel on the social media platform Telegram, which has become a popular conduit for Belarus’ authoritarian President Lukashenko’s foes to share information and organize demonstrations against the government.

The Telegram channel has been a key information conduit for opponents of Lukashenko since most media outlets were forced to shut down after widespread protests over a disputed presidential election in 2020.

Protasevich fled the country in 2019, fearing arrest, but he has continued to roil Lukashenko’s regime while living in exile in Lithuania, so much so that he was charged in November with inciting public disorder and social hatred.