VILNIUS, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Belarusian prisoners released from jail on Thursday and exiled to Lithuania in a U.S.-brokered deal told Reuters they were confused over having to leave their home country, especially as many were almost due to be freed anyway.
Belarus freed 52 prisoners including an EU employee after an appeal from U.S. President Donald Trump, as Washington and Minsk consider a rapprochement that many European leaders have viewed with scepticism.
The exiled opposition says freed political prisoners should have the right to stay in Belarus rather than submit to what it says are in effect forced deportations.
“I wanted (to go) home, to my home in Belarus. They brought me here,” one of the released prisoners, Aleksandr Mantsevich, told Reuters outside the U.S. embassy in Vilnius, where he was driven from Belarus jail.
About half of the prisoners released on Thursday by longtime Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko were almost at the end of their jail terms, said senior opposition official Franak Viacorka.
