(Reuters) - Vietnam has extradited a prominent Belarusian opposition figure to Belarus where he faces a heavy prison sentence or possibly the death penalty, according to exiled opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko.
Vasily Veremeychik, 34, is a former member of the Kalinouski regiment, a Belarusian volunteer force that has fought for Ukraine in the war against Russia. He took part in mass protests in 2020 against Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, after an election that the opposition and the West said was rigged.
Veremeychik is also an elected member of an 80-person Belarusian parliament-in-exile working alongside exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. His return to Belarus is being presented by the authorities there as a major win for the KGB state security apparatus.
On Wednesday, state TV showed him being flown into the capital Minsk on an otherwise empty plane and led down the steps by two security men with their faces blurred out, before being driven away in a van. The video was accompanied by pounding, dramatic music.
Standing on the airport tarmac and speaking into the camera, Konstantin Bychek, head of the investigative department of the Belarus KGB, said Veremeychik's case was a warning to people he described as extremists and terrorists. Such people should know that "Belarusian justice will catch up with them at any point on earth", he added.
Reuters has requested comment from the Vietnamese foreign ministry and the Belarusian justice ministry.
Franak Viacorka, a senior aide to Tsikhanouskaya, told Reuters that Veremeychik was the first member of the Kalinouski regiment to be captured by the Belarusian authorities and was likely to face a sentence of at least 20 years or possible capital punishment on terrorism charges.
He said Veremeychik had gone to Vietnam, where he had friends and was able to travel without a visa, after being denied entry to European Union countries.
Viacorka said this was at the instigation of Lithuania, which he said had banned Veremeychik because he had once served in the Belarusian army. Such bans wrongly targeted "democratic people, good people" in the Belarus opposition, he said.
Lithuanian Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite said Veremeychik was denied entry to Lithuania by the Migration Department, acting on the advice of Lithuanian counterintelligence, news wire BNS reported. A spokesperson for the Migration Department said he could not comment on an individual case.
Human rights group Viasna says 1,273 people are currently jailed in Belarus on politically related charges. Lukashenko, in power since 1994 and running for re-election in January, has this year pardoned a total of 178 people convicted of various forms of "extremism". He denies there are any political prisoners in the country.
Tsikhanouskaya, who fled the country in 2020 after running in the election that Lukashenko was declared to have won, urged countries to halt extraditions to Belarus and help Belarusians acquire legal settlement status.
"No one should be handed over to Lukashenko's KGB," she posted on X. "Don't reject Belarusians seeking safety from the regime's terror."
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan in London, Andrius Sytas in Vilnius and Khanh Vu in Hanoi; Editing by Ros Russell)
