Belarus frees opposition politician after stroke in prison, exiled leader says

MINSK: Belarusian opposition politician Mikola Statkevich, who refused deportation to Lithuania after his 2025 release and was imprisoned again, has been freed after he suffered a stroke while in custody, exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said on Thursday.
Statkevich was one of 52 prisoners freed in Belarus ⁠in September 2025 after ⁠an appeal from US President Donald Trump, including journalists and political opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko. All were brought to the Lithuanian ⁠border, but Statkevich was the only one who refused to cross.
“I am relieved that he is free and able to hug his wife, who waited for him for so long,” Tsikhanouskaya wrote on X, posting a picture of Statkevich and ⁠his ⁠wife smiling. She said that he could barely speak following the stroke.
Statkevich, 69, ran unsuccessfully against Lukashenko in a presidential election in 2010. He was arrested in May 2020 and sentenced in 2021 to 14 years in a maximum-security prison for “organizing riots.”