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Belarusian
Government officials charged in US with aircraft piracy for diverting Ryanair
flight FR4978 to arrest dissident in May 2021
By
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Senior Belarusian officials conspired to use false bomb
threat to unlawfully divert passenger flight carrying American citizens in
order to arrest Belarusian dissident
A federal grand jury in New York
returned an indictment today charging four Belarusian state officials with
conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy.
According to court documents, Leonid Mikalaevich
Churo, Oleg Kazyuchits, Andrey Anatolievich Lnu and Fnu Lnu, all of Belarus,
allegedly engineered the diversion of Ryanair Flight FR4978 (the Flight) –
which was carrying four U.S. nationals and more than 100 other passengers on
board – while it was in flight on May 23, 2021, to arrest a dissident
Belarusian journalist who was on board.
“Since the dawn of powered flight,
countries around the world have cooperated to keep passenger aeroplanes safe,”
said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. “The
defendants shattered those standards by diverting an aeroplane to further the
improper purpose of repressing dissent and free speech. Thanks to the
extraordinary investigative work of a joint team of FBI counterterrorism and
counterintelligence investigators, today’s indictment provides a prompt and
public explanation of what actually happened to the Flight. We are committed to
holding accountable these central participants in a shocking conspiracy to
commit aircraft piracy that not only violated international norms and U.S.
criminal law, but also potentially endangered the lives of four U.S. citizens
and scores of other innocent passengers on board.”
“We allege the defendants carried out
an elaborate scheme to fake a bomb scare which forced an aeroplane to make an
emergency landing in their country so they could arrest a dissident journalist,”
said Assistant Director Michael J. Driscoll of the FBI’s New York Field Office.
“During
the course of our investigation, the FBI identified a detailed operation that
subjected passengers from many countries, including the U.S., to the realities
of terroristic threats. Not only is what took place a reckless violation of
U.S. law, it’s extremely dangerous to the safety of everyone who flies in an
airplane. The next pilot who gets a distress call from a tower may doubt the
authenticity of the emergency – which puts lives at risk. The FBI and our
foreign partners will continue to hold perpetrators responsible for actions
which directly threaten the lives of our US citizens and jeopardize the
stability of our national security.”
Overview of the Plot
While on its regularly scheduled passenger route
between Athens, Greece, and Vilnius, Lithuania, on May 23, 2021, the Flight was
diverted to Minsk, Belarus, by air traffic control authorities in response to a
purported threat of a bomb on board the aircraft. There was, in fact, no bomb
on board the aircraft. Belarusian government authorities fabricated the threat
as a means to exercise control over the Flight and force it to divert from its
course toward the original destination of Vilnius, and instead land in Minsk.
The purpose of the Belarusian government’s plot
diverting the Flight to Minsk was so that Belarusian security services could
arrest a Belarusian journalist and political activist (Individual-1) – who was
critical of the Belarusian government, living in exile in Lithuania, and wanted
by the Belarusian government on allegations of fomenting “mass unrest” – as
well as Individual-1’s girlfriend (Individual-2). The Belarusian government
conspiracy to divert the Flight was executed by, among others, officers of the
Belarusian state security services working in coordination with senior
officials of the Belarusian state air navigation authority.
The Defendants
The defendants, all Belarusian government officials
and critical participants in this conspiracy, are identified as: Leonid
Mikalaevich Churo, Oleg Kazyuchits, Andrey Anatolievich Lnu and Fnu Lnu. At all
times relevant to the indictment, Churo was the Director General of
Belaeronavigatsia, the Belarusian state air navigation authority. As alleged,
Churo personally communicated the false bomb threat to staff at the Minsk air
traffic control centre before the Flight even took off from Athens, and
directed the control centre to instruct the Flight to divert to Minsk in
response to the purported threat.
Kazyuchits was the Deputy Director General of
Belaeronavigatsia, and his role in the conspiracy included directing Belarusian
air traffic authorities to falsify incident reports regarding the diversion of
the Flight in order to conceal the fabrication of the bomb threat and to omit
the role of Belarusian security services in directing the diversion.
Andrey Anatolievich Lnu and Fnu Lnu were officers of
the Belarusian state security services. Fnu Lnu participated with Churo in
conveying the false bomb threat to the Minsk air traffic control tower,
personally directed the specific radio communications from the Minsk tower to
coerce the Flight to divert to Minsk, and relayed contemporaneous updates on
the diversion of the Flight and the progress of the plot to Andrey Anatolievich
Lnu, who was Fnu Lnu’s superior in the Belarusian state security services.
The Diversion of the Flight
On May 23, 2021, at approximately 6:45 UTC, Churo and
Fnu Lnu arrived at the operations room of the Minsk area air traffic control
centre with responsibility for Belarusian airspace. Churo and Fnu Lnu conveyed
the purported bomb threat to the controllers on duty, even though the Flight
had not yet departed Athens. Churo and Fnu Lnu specifically crafted the threat
to coerce the pilots of the Flight to avoid continuing to their final
destination of Vilnius, by claiming that the purported bomb would explode if
the Flight landed there.
In addition, Churo and Fnu Lnu took the telling steps
of directing that the Flight be diverted specifically to Minsk, and even though
the Flight was still in the adjacent airspace of Ukraine, prohibiting the Minsk
air traffic control centre from making any notification to Ukrainian
authorities of the purported bomb threat. This helped to ensure that the Flight
would enter Belarusian airspace, and the plot to obtain and exercise control
over the Flight could be executed. Fnu Lnu remained in the operations room at
the Minsk air traffic control centre from the time that he and Churo conveyed
the purported bomb threat and directed that the Flight divert to Minsk, until
shortly before the Flight landed in Minsk after being diverted, in order to
ensure that the diversion plot was successfully executed.
Once the Flight reached Belarusian airspace, Fnu Lnu
instructed the senior air traffic controller who was responsible for
communicating with the Flight to inform the pilots of the purported bomb
threat, describe that the threat had been sent by email, and make specific
statements to ensure the threat seemed credible and to coerce the Flight to
divert to Minsk. For example, Fnu Lnu directed that the air traffic controller
should falsely inform the pilots that the threat to the aircraft was a level
“red” – the most specific and credible category of threat. Fnu Lnu provided
updates on the execution of the plot in real time to his superior in the
Belarusian security services, Andry Antolievich Lnu, at one point expressing
concern that the pilots might be stalling for time and the Flight might soon
leave Belarusian airspace, which would jeopardize the success of their
diversion scheme. In response to the false information conveyed as part of the
defendants’ plot, the pilots of the Flight ultimately declared an emergency and
diverted to Minsk National Airport, in accordance with the directives from
Churo and Fnu Lnu.
Once the Flight landed in Minsk, Fnu Lnu left the air
traffic control operations room and went to the airport tarmac. The Flight was
met by Belarusian security services personnel, including individuals dressed in
camouflage military-style uniforms, some of whom were wearing ski masks and
carrying visible firearms. Fnu Lnu remained on the tarmac supervising the
security forces and monitoring the screening of the passengers as they
disembarked. Belarusian security services personnel then instructed the
passengers to board one of several airport passenger buses.
Belarusian authorities boarded one of the buses and
asked Individual-1 to come forward and identify himself, demonstrating that
Belarusian authorities were aware that Individual-1 was on board the Flight.
Individual-1 was escorted off the bus, where uniformed Belarusian officers
separately searched him again on the airport tarmac. Belarusian officers then
escorted Individual-1 back onto the bus and travelled with Individual-1 and the
rest of the passengers to the airport terminal. Once the bus arrived at the
terminal, the Flight’s passengers were detained in an area of the terminal
secured by Belarusian security services. Additional Belarusian security
officers met Individual-1 and the officers accompanying him, escorted
Individual-1 away from the remaining passengers and detained Individual-1. One
group of passengers from the Flight, including multiple U.S. nationals and
Individual-2, was detained in a narrow hallway for approximately three hours at
the airport. During that time, Belarusian authorities also escorted
Individual-2 away from the other passengers and detained Individual-2. The
Flight was ultimately allowed to depart from Minsk and continue to its original
destination of Vilnius later that evening. No bomb was ever on the Flight.
The Cover-Up
Soon after the diversion of the Flight, Belarusian
government officials began to cover up what had happened. On or about May 24,
2021, the day after the Flight was diverted, Churo appeared at a press
conference in Belarus with other Belarusian officials to address the Flight’s
diversion. During the press conference, Churo stated falsely the Belarusian
authorities had “done everything according to their technology and their
job responsibilities” in handling the Flight. In reality, Churo
knew that he and his co-conspirators had contrived the false bomb threat and
had directed the Flight to divert to Minsk so that Belarusian security services
could arrest Individual-1 and Individual-2. To further conceal the defendants’
plot, Kazyuchits directed Belarusian air traffic authorities to create false
incident reports, including by doctoring the reports to misrepresent that the
bomb threat was received at approximately the same time that the Flight entered
Belarusian airspace and omit the fact that Fnu Lnu of the Belarusian security
services was present in the operations room and directed activity during the
Flight’s diversion.
Churo, Kazyuchits, Andrey Anatolievich Lnu and Fnu
Lnu, all of Belarus, are charged with conspiring to commit aircraft piracy,
which carries a minimum sentence of 20 years and maximum statutory penalty of
life. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after
considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
The defendants remain at large. The United States
looks forward to working with its foreign partners to bring them to justice.
This case was jointly investigated by the FBI’s New
York Field Office, Counterintelligence Division Foreign Influence Task Force
and the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, which principally consists of
special agents from the FBI and detectives from the NYPD; as well as the FBI
Legal Attaché Offices in Riga, Latvia; Warsaw, Poland; Athens, Greece; Kiev,
Ukraine; and London; the National Transportation Safety Board; the Justice
Department’s National Security Division Counterterrorism Section and Criminal
Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, and the Office of
International Affairs. Poland’s Internal Security Agency and the Mazowieckie
Regional Prosecutor’s Office; and Lithuanian authorities provided valuable
assistance with this investigation.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys David W. Denton Jr. and
Elinor L. Tarlow for the Southern District of New York are prosecuting the
case, with assistance from Trial Attorneys Jennifer Burke of the National
Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section, and Jamie Perry and Christian
Levesque of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions
Section.
An indictment is merely an allegation,
and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt in a court of law.
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