TALLINN, Estonia — A courtroom in Belarus has convicted a dissident journalist who was faraway from a business airplane that was pressured to land within the nation.

Raman Pratasevich stood trial on costs of organizing unrest and plotting to grab energy. The courtroom sentenced him to eight years in jail on Wednesday.

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

Belarusian authorities mentioned there was a bomb menace however later mentioned no explosives had been discovered on board. The incident elicited outrage in Western international locations, with officers condemning it as tantamount to hijacking.

Pratasevich ran a Telegram messaging app channel that was broadly utilized by members in mass protests towards the disputed August 2020 election that gave authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth time period in workplace.