Swiss encrypted email service ProtonMail has told Sputnik that the message about a bomb threat to the Ryanair flight, which had to make an emergency landing in Minsk, was sent after the plane was rerouted toward Minsk
GENEVA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th May, 2021) Swiss encrypted email service ProtonMail has told Sputnik that the message about a bomb threat to the Ryanair flight, which had to make an emergency landing in Minsk, was sent after the plane was rerouted toward Minsk.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Wednesday that the message came from Switzerland to Athens, Vilnius and Minsk simultaneously.
"On May 26th, a copy of an email was leaked to the press. This email was not obtained from Proton, and due to the encryption utilized by ProtonMail, we cannot access or verify the contents of the message. However, we are able to see when the message was sent, and we can confirm that the message in question was sent after the plane was redirected," ProtonMail said.
The email service stated that it had not seen convincing evidence that the claims of Minsk are true, and promised to support investigations by European authorities.
"Due to the usage of ProtonMail by Belarusian citizens to protect their privacy, attempts have been made by the Lukashenko government to block access to ProtonMail since summer 2020. We condemn these actions, and also the recent actions involving Ryanair flight 4978," ProtonMail added.
On Sunday, a flight by the Irish airline Ryanair from Athens to Vilnius was grounded in Minsk over a bomb threat which later turned out to have been fake. Among the passengers was Roman Protasevich, one of the founders of the Telegram channel Nexta, which was active during last year's post-election protests and then designated as extremist. The journalist was detained during the stopover. The incident provoked an outcry from Western politicians and officials.
