Belarusian Foreign Ministry urges Poland to extradite Nexta Telegram channel founders to Minsk
MINSK. Nov 16 (Interfax) - The Belarusian authorities demanded during a meeting with Polish Charge d' Affaires ad interim in Minsk Marcin Wojciechowski that Poland extradite two Telegram channel founders, Stepan Putilo and Roman Protasevich, as soon as possible.
"The Belarusian side expressed concern over the continuing criminal activities of Stepan Putilo and Roman Protasevich through the Nexta and Nexta Live Telegram channels set up by them. We called on the Polish side to extradite Stepan Putilo and Roman Protasevich to the Republic of Belarus as soon as possible, given the particular social threat posed by their criminal activities," the press service for the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
The Polish side also received a note containing a copy of the requests that the Belarusian Prosecutor General's Office forwarded to Poland's Justice Ministry and National Public Prosecutor's Office demanding that Putilo and Protasevich be extradited to face prosecution in Belarus.
The participants in the meeting also discussed the two countries' interaction in fulfilling bilateral obligations as part of international treaties dealing with the fight against organized crime and as part of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.
As reported earlier, Belarus designated the Nexta Telegram channel and its logo as extremist on October 20. It emerged later that the founder of Belarusian opposition Telegram channel Nexta, blogger Putilo, and the channel's former editor-in-chief, Protasevich, are suspects in a case opened into largescale unrest in Belarus. The two have been placed on the interstate wanted list.