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Today, the Lithuanian Court of Appeals, which has not toughened penalties for members of the Pepino Criminal Association accused of serious and very serious crimes with their leader, Saulius Velečka, has reduced their sentences to almost half of those members of the criminal association. In Norway.
The shadow of the seimas
The Kaunas Regional Court had sent them all behind bars almost a couple of years ago. However, three of the four convicts were still free pending sentencing.
After a lengthy pre-trial investigation, they were all sentenced to far fewer sentences, six to fourteen years, than those requested by the prosecutor. They were close to the minimum threatened by the crimes committed.
However, the convicts asked the Lithuanian Court of Appeal to acquit them for their involvement in the activities of a criminal organization and the trade in narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances. The Kaunas Regional Court had already acquitted them of trying to kill them.
As already written, one of these seven: Mindaugas Ratkevičius, who had previously worked in the Public Security Service, was the co-inhabitant and father of the son of the then President of the Seimas Loreta Graužinienė. According to law enforcement officers who prepared the case for court, it was also the bodyguard of one of the leaders of this criminal association, Edikas Mikučiauskas, who accompanied him to meetings with the “authorities” of the criminal world.
Police photo
Most are repeat offenders
Officially, the members of this Ball-related criminal group were deputy directors, project managers, and managers of various companies. Thus they appeared before the Kaunas Regional Court. And his detention operation in April 2015 was kept secret for some time.
They covered their faces from the media as much as they could, and stood before the court. This suggests that not all of his crimes may have been investigated by the police.
Until then, only one of them had been convicted. Others, two to nine times. And not only in Lithuania, but also abroad. Very often, for violent crimes: murder, attempted murder, robbery, extortion. In addition, for the elimination of large amounts of drugs.
Up to six of them, the aforementioned E. Mikučiauskas, M. Ratkevičius and Ronaldas Mikočiūnas, Gediminas Vaikšnoras, Igors Skromovas and Mindaugas Ališauskas, and this time they were accused of trying to use selfish motives, to cover another crime, to kill two Norwegians. compatriots and illegal deprivation of liberty.
Forced guests
One of the victims was M. Ratkevičius’s former colleague from the Public Security Service.
The victims participated in this trial, which lasted more than a year and a half at the Kaunas Regional Court, remotely. One of them said that after taking root in Norway and having his own construction company there, he received a second call from the victim. He asked to help a stranger settle in briefly. After a couple of weeks, the latter “asked” to keep his bag in a dominant tone. There was hash in this. In this way, the victims gradually became involved in drug distribution in Norway.
They not only had to take drugs with R. Mikočiūnas, who is also considered as one of the leaders of this association, who was also considered as one of the leaders of this association, to take them to hiding places, but also to take them to resellers.
R. Mikočiūnas soon arrived in Norway. Plans for this and his accomplices did not end with the smuggling and distribution of drugs. Recruits were also asked about the property situation of other Norwegian-based Lithuanians, suspected of intending to start organized crime.
Midday thriller
The unappealing gang plans for appetite were mixed up by the Norwegian police, who arrested one of their coats of arms. Since then, R. Mikočiūnas and his accomplices have begun to blame the builders involved in their criminal activities for their losses and demand compensation for them.
One of them was forced to pay 8,000. Euros However, 30 thousand more were demanded from the victims who returned to Lithuania as an emergency. euros They were intensely invited to the meetings. One of them took place at noon on April 24, 2015 in the Molas shopping center. Fortunately, he was watched by Kaunas police officers, who had already been asked for help.
According to the indictment, it was planned to kidnap the builders attracted to the trap on the Molo and kill them after taking them to a remote location. R. Mikočiūnas, who attended the meeting with the victims, hit one of them in the face, even before the conversation began. It was a sign of agreement with the brothers to join them as well. The latter were left with the predators, one of whom had a gun to his head and the other a knife to his side.
A criminal vehicle in the ambush was driven to be stopped by former forensic scientists almost at the scene of the crime. The other, with which they took one of the kidnapped, had to be chased to Topoli Street. When arresting the perpetrators of the attack, they took several combat pistols, one of them with a silencer, knives, a telescopic stick and bulletproof vests.
According to the indictment, the defendants also tried to cover their losses in other ways. As a guarantee that the debt would be paid, following the instructions of R. Mikočiūnas, an SUV was used in the suburbs, threatened with a gun, which was also used by a Garliavis living in Norway, who was also involved in this story.
A trip, half a million?
Raimondas Albinas Galeckas, who acted as a drug courier, was also tried together with members of the criminal association headed by E. Mikučiauskas and R. Mikočiūnas.
The latter is accused of bringing around 20 kg of hashish from Spain to Norway in a special hiding place behind the rear seats of the Mazda car. The cargo shelter consisted of two traveling companions who knew nothing about it with drunk faces, a suit and a harmonica hanging in the cabin of the car, a branch and bottles of alcohol, in the trunk.
According to one of the victims, in whose rented garage this cargo was reloaded, the Mazda crew has already returned to Lithuania with approximately half a million Norwegian kroner in the same hiding place.
R. A. Galeckas called the accusation against him completely absurd. Most of the other defendants did not admit guilt, claiming that the victims were afflicting them. However, why, he could not explain.
This accusation is based only on the presumption, and the court does not follow the hypotheses, only the evidence.
Fateful doubts
Mindaugas Sabaitis, the prosecutor of the Kaunas Regional Prosecutor’s Office, who supported the prosecution in this case, offered to put the accused in jail for eleven to sixteen years.
However, the panel of judges of the Kaunas Regional Court, Valdas Vitunskas, Svetlana Jurgaitienė and Gytis Večerskas, who imposed the case, imposed less severe punishments in July 2018, since most of the accused were acquitted due to the attempted murder of his victims trapped in Molo.
“This accusation is based only on presumption, and the court is not based on hypotheses, only on evidence,” said the panel’s 76-page ruling. However, he stated that participation in a criminal organization was fully proven, as there were more than three people armed with criminal plans.
The panel of judges of the Lithuanian Court of Appeals, Justas Namavičius, Regina Pocienė and Ernesta Montvidienė, which examined the complaints of the condemned, announced today that they acquitted R. Mikočiūnas and G. Vaikšnoras also for human trafficking, because they did not commit this crime, i. did not exploit victims for coercive services or criminal activities. And M. Ratkevičius was acquitted due to the illegal possession of a large quantity of narcotic or psychotropic substances, without proving it. However, he was still condemned for getting rid of his large numbers.
Verbal arithmetic
Due to the reasons mentioned above, the sentences imposed on the trio mentioned above by the Kaunas Regional Court were also reduced.
R. Mikočiūnas, 34, is serving between fourteen and thirteen years in prison.
G. Vaikšnoras, 36, who had been isolated from the public by the Kaunas Regional Court for ten years and for six months, for three months.
Photo by Vilmantas Raupelis.
And for M. Ratkevičius, 41, who had been sentenced by the Kaunas Regional Court to the same sentence as G. Vaiksšnor, it was the shortest sentence to six years in prison.
E. Mikučiauskas, 49, who was sent to prison by the Kaunas Regional Court for thirteen years, remained unchanged. Like M. Alishauskas, 40, who has been incarcerated for seven years. And the complaints of R. A. Galeckas, 55, who was sentenced to ten years in prison, and I.Skromov, 51, who was in prison for six years, were rejected.
Photo by I.Skromovas (from left) and M.Ratkevičius / “Kauno diena”.
After the Lithuanian Court of Appeal announced the changes mentioned above in the judgment, it entered into force at the same time.
It is true that R.Mikočiūnas, E.Mikučiauskas, G.Vaikšnoras and M.Ališauskas waited for this moment for more than five years. And that will be included in the punishment imposed on them. The rest of his accomplices were free, with whom they will now have to say goodbye.
Photo by Vilmantas Raupelis, police.
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