Welcome to the inquiry with me, Tanya Beckett, one question for expert witnesses and an answer.

It's the afternoon of the 23rd of May, and young Belarusian journalists,

Roman Protosovich and his girlfriend are in Athens airport.

Roman's senses he's being followed, but continues with his journey,

after all, surely flying from one European country to another should be extremely safe.

But just over two hours into the flight as the plane enters the airspace of the former Soviet

Republic Belarus, it changes course. Air traffic control in the Belarusian capital Minsk

claims there is a bomb threat and instructs the pilot to divert to the airport immediately.

Just in case the pilot isn't minded to comply, a Belarusian fighter jet is scrambled to accompany

the aircraft down to Minsk. But it becomes very quickly apparent that there is in fact no bomb

threat. It was a charade to capture Roman, both he and his girlfriend are imprisoned.

This is the latest and most public demonstration of what Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko

is prepared to do to stay in power. Lukashenko is often described as Europe's last dictator.

He's been in power for over a quarter of a century,

enforcing his authority with the use of threats and brutality against his opponents.

But this time, by hijacking an international flight, he may have gone too far.

So this week we're asking, can President Lukashenko be overthrown?

Part 1

Athens to Vilnius via Minsk

Our first expert witness is Jorg Forbrig.

I'm with the German martial friends of the United States and I'm based out of Berlin, Germany.

Jorg says the fake bomb threat by the Belarusian authority breached international conventions

...