Belarus’ leader pardons woman arrested with her dissident journalist boyfriend in plane incident

By The Associated Press

The president of Belarus has pardoned the girlfriend of a dissident journalist arrested in 2021 after being pulled off a commercial flight that was diverted to the country. A Russian governor reported Wednesday that President Alexander Lukashenko signed a decree freeing Sofia Sapega. The governor said Sapega’s parents had asked for leniency after her conviction and sentencing last June to six years imprisonment. She had been awaiting transfer to a prison in her native Russia. Her boyfriend Raman Pratasevich was convicted last month and sentenced to eight years in prison after their dramatic arrest in May 2021 elicited outrage in the West. Some leaders said the plane’s diversion was tantamount to state-sponsored hijacking.