Sofia Sapega, 23, admits to running an anti-government social media channel
(Picture: via REUTERS)The girlfriend of a Belarusian journalist who was seized from a diverted Ryanair plane has appeared in a leaked confession video.
Sofia Sapega, 23, was flying from Athen to Vilnius with boyfriend Roman Protasevich when their plane was diverted to Minsk.
The pair were then arrested when the plane landed. Three other people also disembarked the flight in Minsk, suspected by Western countries of being spies involved in the operation.
In a confession video, leaked onto a pro-Government Telegram channel, Ms Sapega admits to running a social media channel which published the personal details of Belarusian law enforcement personnel.
Sapega's mother Anna Dudich told Reuters her daughter, a student and a Russian citizen who is originally from Belarus, had steered clear of politics, but that she feared for her health and safety in detention.
"My hopes are now probably based on a miracle and on the knowledge that my daughter is definitely not guilty of anything," Dudich said. "She simply showed up in the wrong place at the wrong time."
It comes after an earlier video showed 26-year-old Protasevich confessing to having organised anti-government demonstrations.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the video was "concerning". German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko must pay a "bitter price" for detaining Protasevich.
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said the footage showed Protasevich had been tortured.
"He said that he was treated lawfully, but he's clearly beaten and under pressure. There is no doubt that he was tortured. He was taken hostage," she told a news conference in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
Belarus did not immediately comment on the torture allegation but has consistently denied abusing detainees.
Rights groups have documented hundreds of cases of what they describe as abuse and forced confessions during a crackdown on pro-democracy opponents of the country’s President Alexander Lukashenko since last year.
Western nations accused Belarus of hijacking and piracy over the interception of the Ryanair plane, and diplomats said France, Ireland and Estonia would raise the incident at a private meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday.
"The behaviour of the Belarus regime is outrageous, illegal, and completely unacceptable ... we also condemn this kind of dangerous interference in civil aviation," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters.
Belarusian state media have reported that Lukashenko personally ordered the flight to be intercepted. Belarus says it was responding to a bomb scare that later proved to be a false alarm.
Lukashenko, whose opponents accuse him of rigging an August 2020 election, has so far shrugged off Western sanctions, which mostly consist of barring various officials from travelling or doing business in the United States and EU.
