Ex-chief editor of NEXTA and editor of Belarus of the Brain, another Telegram channel Roman Protasevich was detained by the Belarusian authorities in Minsk, where the Ryanair flight on which he was traveling from Athens to Vilnius made an emergency landing, the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) said.

"Roman Protasevich has been detained. He was traveling from Athens to Vilnius on board a Ryanair flight. The plane made an emergency landing at the Minsk airport," BAJ said on Telegram on Sunday.

A Ryanair plane traveling from Athens to Vilnius made an emergency landing at the Minsk airport after a bomb alert in the afternoon of May 23. Military engineers boarded the plane to inspect it. Passengers were to pass a security control at the airport. According to the Pool of the First Telegram channel, which is believed to be close Alexander Lukashenko, it was the Belarusian president's personal decision to make the plane land in Minsk. At Lukashenko's request, a MiG-29 fighter jet was reportedly scrambled to escort the passenger plane. The MiG-29 is waiting at the airport until necessary inspections and checks are finished in order to accompany the airliner to the border with Lithuania, it said.

As reported earlier, Roman Protasevich, former chief editor of NEXTA and editor of Belarus of the Brain, the Telegram channels that are both recognized extremist in Belarus, was placed on the international wanted list. In November 2020, the Belarusian Prosecutor General's Office requested the Polish Justice Ministry to put Protasevich in custody and extradite him so that he could be prosecuted in a mass riots case in Belarus.