Belarusian Olympic athlete changes flight route to Poland due to security fears

A Belarusian sprinter who was offered a Polish visa after refusing a forced expulsion from the Olympics changed her travel plans at the last minute, after the Polish government said it had concerns about her travel from Tokyo.

A Polish government source told Reuters on Wednesday that travel arrangements for Krystsina Tsimanouskaya were too widely known, and therefore had to be scrapped.

The official said it was necessary to be "extra careful" after what happened to a Ryanair flight which was forced to land in Belarus in May.

The athlete on Sunday was spirited out of the Olympic village by Belarusian sports officials who tried to deport her for criticising the national team.

She sought police protection at the airport and managed to escape the expulsion.

The athlete, who was offered a humanitarian visa to Poland where she can seek political asylum, was due to go on to Warsaw on a direct flight from Tokyo on Wednesday morning when she reportedly changed her tickets and boarded a flight to Vienna instead. Her associates said she would be travelling to Warsaw from there.

Vadim Krivosheyev of the opposition Belarusian Sports Solidarity Fund, which is handling the athlete’s travel arrangements, confirmed to the Telegraph that her plans changed partly as a security precaution.

The 24-year-old athlete’s parents earlier this week were contacted by the Belarusian Olympic Committee and told that their daughter had been recruited by foreign spies and that she has to come back home “immediately.”

Ms Tsimanouskaya was kicked out of the team over the weekend after she posted a video criticising a last-moment decision to put her on the team’s relay race as Belarus found itself short of athletes who had completed enough doping tests.

A leaked recording of a conversation between Ms Tsimanouskaya and two Belarusian sports officials showed that the team’s coach and an unidentified official pressured her into pulling out of the 200 metre race over her comments on Instagram in which she criticised officials.

Belarusian state TV launched a smear campaign against the athlete after she took her frustration about the relay race to Instagram.

Mr Tsimanouskaya refused to come back to Belarus, fearing for her life.

Several top Belarusian athletes have been kicked off the national team for publicly siding with nationwide protests against the rule of President Alexander Lukashenko, and some of them detained and mistreated in custody.

Mr Lukashenko, an avid sports fan, last week berated the national team for a dismal performance at the Games, saying that the Belarusian government had spoiled the athletes by paying them too much.

In another scandal that risks tainting the regime, a Belarusian exile who helped people flee government repressions was found dead in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv on Tuesday.

Vitaly Shishov was found hanged in the woods near his home, Ukrainian police said, adding that it was looking into all possible theories including murder disguised as a suicide.

The activists’ associates say they have “no doubt” that he was killed by the Belarusian regime.

A court in the Belarusian capital Minsk on Wednesday opened hearings in the criminal case against Maria Kalesnikava, who emerged as one of the faces of the Belarusian opposition last summer before she was jailed in September.

Ms Kalesnikava, 39, stands trial together with her legal adviser Maxim Znak on charges stepping from their roles in leading anti-Lukashenko protests. Both face three sets of charges including collusion to overthrow government, which carries up to 12 years in prison.

Ms Kalesnikava was arrested last year when she foiled the regime's plan to expel her out of the country by tearing up her passport and throwing the pieces in the face of KGB officers.

The trial against Ms Kalesnikava and Mr Znak kicked off on Wednesday behind closed doors, allegedly for reasons of "national security" while Mr Lukashenko's critics say the regime fears the very appearance of the woman often called the Belarusian Joan of Arc.

Mr Kalesnikava with her trademark haircut no longer bleached beamed to cameras from the defendants' glass cage as state media were allowed to film a few minutes before the hearing began.

Her father, Alexander, who has not seen his daughter since she was kidnapped in Minsk and arrested at the Ukrainian border in September, told reporters outside the court that he was encouraged by seeing Ms Kalesnikava, who danced and showed a heart sign with her hands to the camera, in good spirits.