Belarus sentences Japanese man to seven years for spying
A court in Belarus has sentenced a Japanese citizen to seven years in prison for spying, prosecutors said Monday, in a case that officials in the Russian-allied country have not fully explained.
The man, identified by prosecutors as Nakanishi Masatoshi, was detained in July last year, but Minsk announced the arrest only last September.
A Minsk court found him guilty of "espionage activity," the office of Belarus' prosecutor general said.
It said the court convicted him of cooperating with a "special service, security and intelligence agency of a foreign state, involving actions knowingly aimed at harming the national security" of Belarus.
Prosecutors said the man carried out the espionage between 2018 and 2024.
Belarus announced his arrest in a state television report last September that called him an "agent from the land of the rising sun," with the country's KGB intelligence service accusing him of collecting military information.
The report said that he took photos of military facilities as well as railway infrastructure, and that he had traveled to the Ukrainian border.
It showed footage of masked men in plainclothes carrying him into a van during his detention.
The report also described him as a lawyer.
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya criticized Masatoshi's sentencing, calling for his immediate release.
"Like other political prisoners, he is being dehumanized by regime propaganda," she wrote on X.
Belarus, ruled by President Alexander Lukashenko since 1994, is a close ally of Moscow and has close ties to Beijing.
Japan confirmed the arrest at the time, saying it was doing everything it could to help the man.
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