The ICAO Council decided to continue investigating the incident with the Ryanair plane, which was flying from Athens to Vilnius and was forced to land at the airport in Minsk, where its passengers Raman Pratasevich and Safia Sapega were detained in May last year.
As noted in the message following the meeting of the Council of the organization, the discussion of the report was attended by countries that are not part of it, but have a special interest in the results of the investigation: Belarus, Lithuania, Poland and Ireland.
During the discussion of the report on the incident, gaps in the information provided by Belarus were noted, as well as inconsistencies in the reconstruction of the events. It was stressed that the threat of a bomb explosion on board the aircraft was deliberately false. The Council recalled that it was an offence to report false information about a threat to the safety of an aircraft.
The Council encouraged the organization’s members to continue their cooperation with the ICAO. The head of the Council was instructed to send the final report to the UN Secretary General.
Let us recall, the report was sent to the member countries of the ICAO in mid-January. After its publication in the United States, charges were brought against four Belarusian officials. Aliaksandr Lukashenka, in turn, said that the report proves the innocence of the Belarusian side and ICAO now can only slow down the case, and Belarus will seek compensation for sanctions in the courts.
Source: Reform.by
