By Andrius Sytas
VILNIUS (Reuters) -Belarusian prisoners released from jail on Thursday and exiled to Lithuania in a U.S.-brokered deal told Reuters they were confused over having to leave their home country, especially as many were almost due to be freed anyway.
Belarus freed 52 prisoners including an EU employee after an appeal from U.S. President Donald Trump, as Washington and Minsk consider a rapprochement that many European leaders have viewed with scepticism.
The exiled opposition says freed political prisoners should have the right to stay in Belarus rather than submit to what it says are in effect forced deportations.
“I wanted (to go) home, to my home in Belarus. They brought me here,” one of the released prisoners, Aleksandr Mantsevich, told Reuters outside the U.S. embassy in Vilnius, where he was driven from Belarus jail.
About half of the prisoners released on Thursday by longtime Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko were almost at the end of their jail terms, said senior opposition official Franak Viacorka.
“Just imagine, they were looking forward to getting free soon, and suddenly they find themselves deported, separated from family, they don’t have passports, and they can’t go back,” he said.
Opposition politician Mikola Statkevich, one of the most prominent of those released, refused to enter Lithuania on Thursday and went back to Belarus.
Marina Adamovic, his wife who is in Belarus, told Reuters on Friday she had no contact with him since then.
Opposition official Viacorka said he would probably be rearrested.
“Lukashenko’s regime has a problem, because he was officially released from jail, but they cannot allow him to go home in Belarus. They will probably give him another criminal case,” Viacorka said.
Opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who herself lives in exile, said the West should demand that Lukashenko allows former political prisoners to stay in the country.
“People have to have right to stay in Belarus,” she said.
A SACK OVER THE HEAD
Outside the U.S. embassy in Vilnius, many said they sympathised with Statkevich’s decision not to leave.
“I want to go back home. I cannot imagine my life without Belarus. I want to go home,” Iryna Slaunikava, an opposition journalist who spent two years and eight months in jail, told Reuters.
“I don’t know if this is safe, but I really want to go home. I served out almost all of my sentence, with four months remaining, haven’t I earned the right to live at home?” she asked, crying.
Another former prisoner, Pavel Vinogradov said he was due to meet his son for the first time in four years on Saturday, but instead found himself in Lithuania.
“Yesterday, when they put a sack on my head and took me somewhere, I knew I am getting out”, he said. “I hope my wife eventually comes here, and I meet my son in the European Union.”
(Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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