Prisoners freed after Trump appeal were near end of terms and should have right to stay, say exiled opposition leaders
Belarusian prisoners released from jail and exiled to Lithuania in a US-brokered deal have said they were confused over having to leave Belarus – especially as many were almost due to be freed anyway.
Belarus freed 52 prisoners including an EU employee on Thursday after an appeal from 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 US embassy in Vilnius, where he had been driven from the Belarus jail.
