WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Prominent journalist Andrzej Poczobut has been released from jail in Belarus in a swap with Poland that saw a total of 10 people freed as the authoritarian leader of Belarus seeks improved relations with the West, officials in both countries said Tuesday.
Poczobut, a correspondent for the influential Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and a leading figure among Belarus’ Polish minority, was serving eight years in prison in a case condemned as politically motivated.
His 2021 arrest after covering pro-democracy rallies in Belarus drew widespread criticism. He later was awarded the Sakharov Prize, the European Union’s most prestigious human rights award.
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski described Poczobut as a symbol of the fight for freedom in Belarus but also of the effectiveness of the Polish state in leaving no one behind.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who welcomed Poczobut on the border with Belarus around midday Tuesday, posted on X that the journalist was “unwavering.” Poczobut’s first words to him were about his chances of returning to his home in Belarus, Tusk wrote, and said he replied: “Only you decide. You’re a free man now.”
The swap is the latest in a series of U.S.-negotiated prisoner releases that have marked stronger relations between Minsk and the West during U.S. President Donald Trump's second term.
A Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman said three of the five prisoners released by Belarus came to Poland in exchange for three sent by Poland to Belarus, with a total of 10 involving other countries.
Belarus’ presidential press service said the negotiations had involved intelligence services from seven countries. It described some of the prisoners who returned to Minsk as having "carried out particularly important missions in the interests of ensuring the national security and defense capability of our country.”
The Russian state news agency Tass identified one of those released as Alexander Butyagin, a Russian national due be extradited from Poland to Ukraine on allegations he conducted excavations involving artifacts at a site in Crimea that Ukraine considers part of its cultural heritage.
Seeking better relations
In March, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko ordered the release of 250 political prisoners as part of a deal with Washington that lifted some U.S. sanctions.
A close ally of Russia, Minsk has faced isolation for years. Lukashenko has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, and the country has been sanctioned repeatedly by Western countries — both for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Writing on X, Trump’s special envoy for Belarus, John Coale, said three Poles and two Moldovans had been released as part of the swap. He thanked Poland, Moldova, and Romania for what he called “their invaluable support,” along with the willingness by Lukashenko "to pursue constructive engagement with the United States.”
It was this warming of U.S.-Belarus relations that gave Warsaw hope for reducing tensions with Minsk.
Poland has campaigned for Poczobut’s release alongside other Polish prisoners in Belarus, including the Rev. Henryk Akalatovich, a Catholic priest sentenced to 11 years in prison, and the recently detained 27-year-old Polish Carmelite monk Grzegorz Gaweł.
Poczobut became a symbol of repression
Large portraits of Poczobut had appeared regularly at the Poland-Belarus border, a reminder of the large-scale political repression in Minsk and of tensions on the EU and NATO frontier.
Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told The Associated Press that Poczobut was a hero who had never betrayed his principles.
"After years of unjust detention and isolation, he can breathe freely," she said, while calling for the release of the hundreds of political prisoners in Belarus.
Poczobut’s arrest followed his coverage of the pro-democracy rallies that engulfed Belarus in 2020 after the disputed presidential election that kept Lukashenko in office.
He decided to stay in Belarus despite the brutal crackdown that followed, resulting in over 65,000 arrests, thousands of police beatings and tens of thousands fleeing abroad.
Poczobut was sent to one of the country’s harshest maximum-security prisons to serve his sentence, despite ongoing worries for his health.
The Belarusian human rights group Viasna said he repeatedly was denied essential medications and refused contact with his wife and children. It also reported that he had been placed in solitary confinement for several months after refusing work that he was unable to perform due to his health.
Bartosz Wieliski, the deputy editor in chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, met Poczobut at the border and said the journalist went straight to a hospital for a checkup.
“For Poland, Poczobut is a national hero. For Belarus, he’s a reminder that a state cannot be built on fear,” said Andżelika Borys, head of the Union of Poles in Belarus, who spent more than a year in prison. “For Europe, he’s a witness to the fact that the struggle for freedom continues not in the pages of textbooks but in the prison cells of the 21st century.”
—-
Karmanau reported from Tallinn, Estonia.
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
