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As delfi.lt portal writes on Tuesday, four of these witnesses are still working in court. One of them is Aloyzas Kruopys, President of the Criminal Division of the Lithuanian Court of Appeal. He is also a member of the Council of Judges.
According to Delfi.lt sources, more judges of the Lithuanian Court of Appeals also have the status of special witnesses in a large case of judicial corruption.
Special witness status is granted when there is evidence in the case file that a crime may have been committed and that the crime may have been committed by a particular person, but this information is not sufficient to grant that person the suspect status.
Žydrūnas Bartkus, Director of the Special Investigation Service (STT) conducting the pre-trial investigation, announced that four judges have been questioned as special witnesses in the corruption of judges case and are still working and examining cases in the judicial system.
A. Valantinas, President of the Council of Judges, who heads the Lithuanian Court of Appeals, contacted Prosecutor General Evaldas Pašilis and requested urgent information about the judges who had acquired that status as a special witness and the circumstances under which this status was granted .
A week after contacting the Attorney General, the Council of Judges had still not received a response, although it had already been sent by the Office of the Attorney General.
“In the absence of official information about the judges who have been granted special witness status and the circumstances under which such status may have been granted, I cannot make any assessment of the possibility of such judges serving as judges or of possible decisions of the Council of Judges on these matters “. .lt noted by A.Valantinas. He did not respond if he knew that special witness status in a corruption of judges case was also granted to A. Kruopis, president of the Criminal Cases Division of the Lithuanian Court of Appeals, headed by him, and other judges.
“The Council of Judges does not have a legal basis to follow information that has not been officially provided or provided by journalists, but has been obtained from unconfirmed sources,” Valantinas said in a response sent by Delfi.
At the time, the chairman of the Criminal Cases Division A. Kruopys said he could not comment on the information about the STT interviews.
“Suspicious notifications were presented to 12 previous and current judges: some of them were dismissed, others were dismissed and some judges voluntarily resigned. Of these 12 suspects, four judges were notified of the suspicions when they were no longer working in the courts,” he reported. the Attorney General’s Office to the portal.
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