Passengers of the hijacked plane tell of the panic of those moments

Flight in question had to land in Lithuania after leaving Greece when it was forced to change direction to Belarus's capital, Minsk, in order to arrest blogger Roman Protasevich, reports the BBC, Periscopi.

The pilot announced an emergency stop, but without detail.

The plane was then accompanied by a military jet that took them to Minsk Airport.

Clearly, everything had been going smoothly.

“We were in panic because we thought we were going to crash,” said Lithuanian passenger Raselle Grigorieva.

It was unexpected, the altitude of the plane so dramatically changed. It was violent. I've never experienced this before. Each was shocked,” she said.

The Belarusites had said that there was a bomb threat so that this plane's path could be changed.

Another Lithuanian passenger named Mantas has told Reuters that the moment the pilot announced that the flight would go to Minsk, journalist Protasevich had opened the case.

He took his briefcase, and he was trying to break his stuff, and he gave it to his boyfriend's computer. He made a mistake. He had many people, and he could give things to us, not to our girlfriend, who was also arrested. ”

Another passenger said officials had used physical force when they arrested the journalist for whom he said it was “tely frightened”. /Periscope