Roman Protasevich was arrested in May 2021, when he had already gone into exile. The 28-year-old was arrested when his plane was forced down in Minsk.
He was convicted on a total of more than 1 500 charges, including terrorist offences. The sentence was eight years' stay in a penal colony. He had pleaded guilty to crimes and several voices in Belarus' democratic opposition in exile have said they fear that he has been forced to cooperate with the KGB security service. He co-founded the news service Nexta, which grew into an important and open platform during the mass protests of 2020 and 2021.