Ryanair bomb threat sent af ter jet was diverted

An eMAILeD bomb threat which allegedly forced the landing of a Ryanair flight was sent 24 minutes after the jet was told to divert.

Belarus blamed Palestinian militant group Hamas for the apparent threat which forced the jet to land in Minsk, leading to the arrest of a dissident journalist and his girlfriend.

But the email was time-stamped nearly half an hour after air traffic control had alerted the pilot of the warning to bomb the jet if it stayed on its course from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania.

The email with the subject ‘Allahu Akbar’ – the Islamic phrase for ‘God is the greatest’ – was sent at 12.57pm, at which point the flight was on its way to the Belarus capital escorted by a MiG-29 fighter jet.

On arrival, all 126 passengers were led off the Boeing 737 by armed guards and exiled activist Roman Protasevich, 26, and girlfriend Sofia Sapega, 23, were arrested.

The events have been likened to a ‘hijacking’ and ‘kidnapping’.

Western leaders condemned Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko for the act and called for the two to be released. The email, touted by the Belarus transport and communications ministry, was uncovered by newlines magazine, the Dossier Center and the Daily Beast site.

email provider Proton Technologies AG confirmed it was sent after the passenger jet was diverted.

It said in a statement: ‘We haven’t seen credible evidence that the Belarusian claims are true.’

earlier this week Artem Sikorsky, head of aviation at the ministry, said the threat read: ‘We, the soldiers of Hamas, demand that Israel cease fire in the Gaza Strip.

‘We demand that the european Union renounces its support for Israel in this war... A bomb is planted on this flight. If you do not fulfil our demands, the bomb will explode over Vilnius on May 23.’

Hamas, now in a ceasefire with Israel, denied it sent any threat.

German chancellor Angela Merkel blasted Minsk’s explanation as ‘completely implausible’.

Michael O’Leary, Ryanair chief executive, said the act was ‘a case of state-sponsored hijacking’ in which ‘the intent of the authorities was to remove a journalist’.

All of europe, including the UK, has now banned flights from Belarus airspace over safety fears.