Raman Pratasevich: the Belarus journalist captured by a fighter jet

Friends describe arrest of influential opposition journalist as an act of personal revenge' by the country's president

In an interview last November the 26-year-old opposition journalist Raman Pratasevich said he was not planning to spend his life in exile. I would go back to Belarus immediately if my safety was guaranteed," he said. My intention is to return."

The extraordinary circumstances of Pratasevich's involuntary homecoming have provoked international outrage, after his Ryanair flight was forced on Sunday to land in Belarus's capital Minsk. It was on its way from Greece to Lithuania, where Pratasevich was living.