A journalist of Polish descent has been freed from a Belarusian prison through a prisoner exchange conducted at the border between the two nations on Tuesday.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced the release of Andrzej Poczobut, who holds both Polish and Belarusian citizenship, on social media. “Andrzej Poczobut is free! Welcome to your Polish home, my friend,” Tusk wrote on social media platform X, posting a picture of himself with the journalist of Polish origin.
The exchange involved five prisoners from each country, according to Belarus’s state-run news agency Belta.
Poczobut had been behind bars since his arrest in March 2021. A Belarusian court handed him an eight-year prison sentence in 2023 after convicting him of inciting ethnic hostility and undermining Belarusian security.
Polish officials have consistently maintained that the accusations against Poczobut were unfair and driven by political motives.
Poland has served as a safe haven for critics and dissidents fleeing the authoritarian rule of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. The country has also emerged as one of Ukraine’s strongest allies following Russia’s full-scale military assault on Ukraine that began in 2022, with Russia being Belarus’s primary partner.
