Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court said Thursday they had opened an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity by Belarusian authorities targeting opposition figures in Lithuania.
The Baltic nation has become a refuge for tens of thousands of Belarusians who left their homeland after Minsk authorities violently suppressed 2020 protests against President Alexander Lukashenko.
In September 2024, Lithuania urged the ICC, based in The Hague, to open an investigation, as it said some of the alleged crimes took place on its soil.
The ICC Office of the Prosecutor said Thursday it had found "a reasonable basis to believe crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court have been committed".
The alleged crimes investigated include deportation and persecution through deportation and were committed "at least in part on the territory of Lithuania," the prosecutor's office said.
"There is a reasonable basis to believe that these crimes were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population," said the prosecutor.
Belarus has routinely forcibly deported political prisoners that it has released from prison, mostly to Lithuania, such as Nobel Prize winner Ales Bialiatski in December.
Minsk also tried to deport opposition figure Mykola Statkevich to Lithuania by force in September last year, but he refused to cross the border and walked back to Belarus, where he was sent back to prison before being released on health grounds in February this year.
Belarusian exiled opposition figures regularly report being threatened by Minsk's KGB security services while abroad.
According to the Viasna rights group, there are currently 1,139 political prisoners in Belarus.
Belarus is not a member of the ICC and crimes committed there do not fall under the court's jurisdiction, but alleged crimes in Lithuania do.
Lithuania's justice minister at the time of the referral said she expected the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for Lukashenko after the probe.
That would only happen if the prosecutor's investigation showed reasonable grounds to request a warrant that would then have to be granted by ICC judges.
