‘I never expected he would be freed’ wife of Belarus opposition leader tells France 24

Belarus’s top jailed opposition leader Sergei Tikhanovsky was freed alongside over a dozen other political prisoners on Saturday in a surprise release hailed as a “symbol of hope”. Tikhanovsky, 46, had been imprisoned for more than five years while his wife, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya took the mantle of the opposition after his jailing. She gave an interview to France 24 shortly after her husband’s release. “When I heard by husband’s voice saying ‘my dear wife, I am free I was really astonished,” she said. “I never expected this.”