A court in Belarus has sentenced a Japanese citizen to seven years in prison for spying, prosecutors said on 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 but Minsk announced the arrest only in 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.
Nakanishi had lived in Gomel, Belarus’ second-largest city, since 2018 and taught Japanese at a local university, according to Belarusian state-controlled media.
Prosecutors said the man carried out the espionage between 2018 and 2024.