VLADIVOSTOK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th June, 2021) The father of Russian national Sofia Sapega who was detained during the stopover of a Ryanair plane in Minsk in May, Andrey Sapega, appealed on Thursday to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, asking him to pardon his daughter.
"She faces very serious prison terms. In my address, on the eve of the visit of Alexander Lukashenko to [Russia's] Primorsky Territory, I would like to address him personally, as a father to a father. Alexander Grigorievich, I ask you for mercy. It is time to end cruelty, the world has been overflowing with it lately. Any sane person understands that Sophia was in the wrong place and with the wrong person," Andrey said in a video address, published by the Russian PrimaMedia news agency.
The father added that during protests that broke out in Minsk and other Belarusian cities last August, Sofia was in Lithuania, where she studies at the European Humanities University.
He went on to say that his daughter helped Belarusian opposition journalist Roman Protasevich in his work only because he was her boyfriend, not because of her beliefs.
"Alexander Grigorievich, as a father to father, I ask you for a personal meeting and I am ready to provide all the necessary guarantees that my daughter will no longer be involved in illegal activities," Sapega said, adding that he will also ask Primorsky Territory Governor Oleg Kozhemyako to assist in organizing the meeting.
Sofia Sapega and Roman Protasevich were detained in late May, after their flight from Athens to Vilnius had to make an emergency landing in Minsk over a bomb threat flagged by the Belarusian authorities, which turned out to be false. Protasevich ran Telegram channel Nexta, which played a crucial part during last year's post-election protests in Belarus and was marked by Minsk as extremist. The journalist's arrest sparked a wave of outcry from Western countries.
