I quote the DoJ press release; you can also read the Indictment here (starting at p. 5); the last name Lnu, of course, is a old Slavic root, doubtless cognate with "лён," meaning linen or flax.
Belarusian Government Officials Charged with Aircraft Piracy for Diverting Ryanair Flight 4978 to Arrest Dissident Journalist in May 2021
Senior Belarusian Officials Conspired to Use False Bomb Threat to Unlawfully Divert Passenger Flight Carrying American Citizens in Order to Arrest Belarusian Dissident
A federal grand jury in New York returned an indictment today charging four Belarusian state officials with conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy.
According to court documents, Leonid Mikalaevich Churo, Oleg Kazyuchits, Andrey Anatolievich Lnu and Fnu Lnu, all of Belarus, allegedly engineered the diversion of Ryanair Flight 4978 (the Flight) – which was carrying four U.S. nationals and more than 100 other passengers on board – while it was in flight on May 23, 2021, to arrest a dissident Belarusian journalist who was on board.
"Since the dawn of powered flight, countries around the world have cooperated to keep passenger airplanes safe," said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. "The defendants shattered those standards by diverting an airplane to further the improper purpose of repressing dissent and free speech. Thanks to the extraordinary investigative work of a joint team of FBI counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigators, today's indictment provides a prompt and public explanation of what actually happened to the Flight. We are committed to holding accountable these central participants in a shocking conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy that not only violated international norms and U.S. criminal law, but also potentially endangered the lives of four U.S. citizens and scores of other innocent passengers on board."
"We allege the defendants carried out an elaborate scheme to fake a bomb scare which forced an airplane to make an emergency landing in their country so they could arrest a dissident journalist," said Assistant Director Michael J. Driscoll of the FBI's New York Field Office. "During the course of our investigation, the FBI identified a detailed operation that subjected passengers from many countries, including the U.S., to the realities of terroristic threats. Not only is what took place a reckless violation of U.S. law, it's extremely dangerous to the safety of everyone who flies in an airplane. The next pilot who gets a distress call from a tower may doubt the authenticity of the emergency – which puts lives at risk. The FBI and our foreign partners will continue to hold perpetrators responsible for actions which directly threaten the lives of our US citizens and jeopardize the stability of our national security."
Overview of the Plot
