A court in Belarus has convicted a dissident journalist who was removed from a commercial aeroplane that was forced to land in the country.

Roman Pratasevich stood trial on charges of organising unrest and plotting to seize power. The court sentenced him to eight years in prison on Wednesday.

Pratasevich and his Russian girlfriend were arrested in May 2021 when their Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was ordered to land in the capital of Belarus, Minsk.

Belarusian authorities said there was a bomb threat but later said no explosives were found on board.

The incident elicited outrage in western countries, with officials condemning it as tantamount to hijacking.

Pratasevich ran a Telegram messaging app channel that was widely used by participants in mass protests against the disputed August 2020 election that gave authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in office.

Belarusian flight controllers ordered the Ryanair jetliner travelling between Greece and Lithuania to land in Minsk, telling the crew that there was a bomb threat against the flight. No explosives were found on board, and Pratasevich, who lived in exile at the time, was detained once the plane was on the ground. His Russian girlfriend was also arrested.

The founder of the Telegram channel, Stepan Putilo, and another editor of the channel, Yan Rudik, were sentenced in absentia to 20 and 19 years in prison respectively. Both remain in exile.

Train derailed

An explosion derailed a freight train for the second day in a row in a Russian region bordering Ukraine on Tuesday, sending both the locomotive and some cars off the tracks, authorities said.

The incident occurred in the western Bryansk region, which borders both Ukraine and Belarus. Russian officials say pro-Ukrainian sabotage groups have made multiple attacks there since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

"An unidentified explosive device went off near the Snezhetskaya railway station. There were no casualties," Bryansk regional governor Alexander Bogomaz wrote on Telegram.

Reuters, AP/PTI