Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: “Today, ICAO released its fact-finding report into the event involving Ryanair flight FR4978 in Belarus airspace. The report is accessible to all 193 ICAO Member States, including the 36 states presently elected to the ICAO Council.
I am grateful to ICAO for the report release and start of public work on the case. Last summer, my team appealed to the President of the ICAO Council, urging to conduct a thorough investigation into the plane's hijack and arrest of Raman Pratasevich and Sofia Sapega. Since then, we have been in contact with the organization's leadership.
The next step is the debate among the representatives of the ICAO Council based on the findings of the report. It will be an important benchmark since the report does not name the perpetrators and is only the starting point in investigating the crime. The regime’s actions convinced Belarusians that the law may be broken in a matter of seconds while restoring justice takes more time. But justice will be secured, and the first steps have already been taken”.
