MINSK/MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th August, 2020) Rossiya Segodnya information agency's photojournalist Ilya Pitalev, detained in Belarus for covering rallies over the presidential election results, will be expelled from the country and banned from visiting it for a certain period of time, the head of the Belarusian Interior Ministry's Immigration and Citizenship Department said on Tuesday.
A source in the Belarusian Interior Ministry told Sputnik Belarus earlier in the day that Pitalev was in a detention center in Minsk region.
"He will be expelled from Belarus and most likely banned from entering the country for a certain period of time," Aleksey Begun said, as quoted by Sputnik Belarus.
The trial may be held online, Begun added.
"Due to the large number of detained people, the trial may be held through an online video conference, via Skype," Begun told Sputnik Belarus.
Detained journalists working for the Daily Storm news outlet � Anton Starkov and Dmitry Lasenko � as well as military journalist Semen Pegov and his cameraman, Vladislav Zizdok, have left the Russian embassy in Belarus and will be taken to Russia in a diplomatic car, Daily Storm Editor-in-Chief Alyona Sivkova told Sputnik, confirming the information provided by RT correspondent Konstantin Pridybailo.
"They will be taken to Russia in a diplomatic car, then they will get into their own car and go to Moscow," Sivkova said.
It is not clear yet when the journalists will arrive in the Russian capital.
