Belarusian opposition leader Mikola Statkevich, who was freed from prison last week as part of a US-brokered deal, has been returned to custody, the independent news outlet Nasha Niva reported Monday.
The outlet, citing sources, said Statkevich “turned up in the Glubokoye penal colony” in northern Belarus, where he had previously been serving his sentence. No further details were provided.
Statkevich, 69, was among 52 political prisoners released September 11 under a deal mediated by Washington. Unlike others freed under the agreement, he refused to leave Belarus. Reports said he forced open the door of a transport bus and exited in the neutral zone between Belarus and Lithuania.
The veteran opposition figure, who challenged authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in the disputed 2010 election, had been imprisoned ahead of Belarus’ contested 2020 presidential vote.
Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said last week that Statkevich had disappeared after his release and that his whereabouts were unknown. She warned that the prisoner releases were not genuine freedom but amounted to “forced deportation”.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said those freed included opposition activists, journalists and protesters holding Belarusian as well as Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish, British, German and French citizenship. He said US President Donald Trump personally took part in negotiations for the deal.
Nausėda stressed that the releases were not linked to lifting Western sanctions on Belarus. However, the United States on Thursday removed sanctions on the state airline Belavia.
Tsikhanouskaya said later on Monday she had information Statkevich was in prison.
“We have unconfirmed information that he has returned to prison. We know only this,” she told BNS ahead of her meeting with Speaker of the Lithuanian Seimas Juozas Olekas on Monday.
She later said she was deeply concerned about Statkevich’s fate after he was released but refused to leave Belarus.
“He was taken by Lukashenko’s security service and there is unconfirmed information that he was returned to prison,” Tsikhanouskaya added.
She says she respects people’s right to stay in their own country and calls for continued pressure on the Minsk government to release political prisoners and allow them to remain in the country.
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