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The complaint signed by lawyers Adam Liutvinskas and Kęstutis Ragaišis calls for the ruling of the Šiauliai Regional Court to be annulled and for a new sentence to be accepted: acquitting A. Paleckis.
“It just came to our attention then. I think this case is a legal misunderstanding, a column, reflections, deliberations, assumptions. He is being persecuted for his political beliefs,” lawyer A. Liutvinskas told BNS.
At the end of July, the Šiauliai Regional Court found A. Paleckis guilty and sentenced him to six years in prison. If the sentence is upheld, Paleckis will actually be abused for a much shorter period of time, about a year and a half.
The 18 months he spent while in detention during the investigation and awaiting trial from October 2018 to April 2020 are counted towards the sentence imposed by the court.
So far, A. Paleckis is free, the court has maintained intensive supervision and the previous one paid 50 thousand. a guarantee of EUR. Deimantas Bertauskas, a Vilnius businessman, was tried together with him in the case, he also confessed to cooperating with the police, for which he was released from responsibility and protected by the state.
A. Paleckis denies guilt and alleges that he carried out a journalistic investigation, that when communicating with Russian citizens he was unaware of their relations with the Russian secret services, the communication was exclusively related to his journalistic and political activities and the establishment of joint associations. business with Bertauskas.
The Šiauliai Regional Court qualified this version as the desire of A. Paleckis to avoid criminal responsibility for espionage, because, in the opinion of the court, his testimony and the chosen defense tactics, in his own interpretation and interpretation of the circumstances of the crime and the evidence gathered in the case contradicts other reliable data in the case.
The court considers that the material collected in the case negatively describes the personality of A. Paleckis, shows his antisocial attitudes and his desire to act against Lithuania in favor of Russia.
The court examining the case stated that the evidence gathered in the case and examined at the judicial hearing clearly testifies that D.Bertauskas and A.Paleckis carried out the acts charged against them.
“The court emphasized that the Department of Homeland Security (SSD) was competent to provide analytical information related to its direct activities and that it requires special knowledge, and the court relied on it to reach its verdict,” the court said.
Furthermore, as highlighted by the Šiauliai Regional Court, in this case the information provided by the SSD (as far as possible, taking into account the particularities of the case) and other data of the case are confirmed.
The Attorney General’s Office will not file an appeal
The State Prosecutor, Attorney General Vilma Vidugirienė, asked the court to impose a prison sentence of nine years for A. Paleckis, less than that imposed by the court.
The BNS prosecutor said he would not appeal.
“The minimum penalty for such a crime is three years in prison. The court announced that the information collected by A. Paleckis was of a different nature,” V. Vidugirienė told BNS.
The verdict establishes that the information collected by A. Paleckis of interest to foreign intelligence is not classified as information that is a Lithuanian state secret, in addition, the tasks of the Russian Federal Security Service FSB were not fully fulfilled: the information gathered from Russian intelligence was not passed on to him.
Therefore, the court ruled that the danger of the crime committed by A. Paleckis for the society is less compared to other types of crimes of this type.
The court confirmed all of the prosecution’s allegations in this case in their entirety and no circumstances were removed.
According to the data of the case, D.Bertauskas and A.Paleckis had to gather information on judges, prosecutors, Lithuanian specialists who investigated the case of January 13,
According to the court, D.Bertauskas and A.Paleckis had a common goal: to resume the activities of the Lithuanian People’s Party (LLP) registered in Lithuania and on September 23, 2011 on the basis of an agreement between LLP and the Russian party. “Jedynaja Rossija” (United Russia) financial support of this Russian political party to the political activities of the LLP and the political party of the Russian Lithuanian Union – to participate in the elections of the Lithuanian municipalities and the Seimas.
To this end, from February 12 to 18, 2017, while in Moscow, D. Lertauskas and A. Paleckis were scheduled to meet with Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Council of Russia, to discuss the resumption of relations with the party.
Neither D.Bertauskas nor A.Paleckis managed to establish contacts with the representatives of the aforementioned party independently.
According to the data of the case, D.Bertauskas and A.Paleckis communicated with the representatives of Russia in accordance with the rules of special secrecy and strict conspiracy, contractual phrases used and a specially designed email box.
It was agreed that the information collected for Russian intelligence would be transmitted only during meetings with such Russian citizens in Russia.
In the last decade, Paleckis was convicted of denying Soviet aggression during the events of January 13, 1991, when he claimed that he had “shot his own” that day.
When imposing the sentence, the Šiauliai Regional Court also took into account this circumstance that A. Paleckis was convicted of a crime related to the events of January 13.
