The STT found out how the judge of the Court of Appeal intended to bribe the judge of Kaunas

Former Kaunas politician Valys Venslovas will also appear in court alongside the former judge. He is also the former technical director of Kauno vandenys.

As reported by the STT and the Prosecutor’s Office, the data of a complex preliminary investigation give reasons to suspect that in 2015-2016. V. Bavėjanas, the then judge of the Criminal Cases Division of the Lithuanian Court of Appeal, during a meeting and another communication with his childhood friend V. Venslov, agreed with him about a possible illegal attempt to alleviate the position V. Venslov in legal proceedings against the latter.

In this process, V. Venslov is accused of corruption: abuse of official position to obtain property for himself and other people and for other criminal acts.

According to the investigation data, during the examination of the criminal case of V. Venslovas at the Kaunas Regional Court of First Instance, V. Bavėjanas and V. Venslovas may have repeatedly consulted, planned and coordinated how they could offer, promise, agree to give and then give 10 thousand. a bribe to the judge of the Criminal Chamber of the Kaunas Regional Court, Viktoras Preikšas, to illegally influence the judge of this court Algerda Urbšis, who examined the case of V. Venslovas, due to the imposition of a lesser sentence.

According to the information available in the case, V. Bavėjanas approached the judge of this court with such a request, offering him directly and promising to give a bribe of the specified amount.

By failing to achieve the intended objective and then transferring V. Venslov’s case to the Lithuanian Court of Appeal, the defendant allegedly illegally tried to have this criminal case assigned to a judge whom V. Bavėjanas hoped to unlawfully influence due to the imposition of a minor punishment to V. Venslov.

The data available in the case give reason to suspect that both defendants realized that their actions were not lawful, so they tried to exercise caution, hinted at conversations and interactions with others, and applied various other precautions when meeting and arranging. meetings with others.

As noted in the report, the criminal case in which V. Venslovas was convicted by the Kaunas Regional Court is currently being examined by the Lithuanian Court of Appeal. The verdict was due to be announced by the court last week, but its publication was postponed until December 3.

V. Venslovas is a former technical director of the Kauno vandenys company, in October last year the Kaunas Regional Court sentenced him to three years in prison in the Kauno Vandenai case, but postponed his execution for two years. The court also awarded him 37.6 thousand. He was also deprived of his right to work in public service for three years.

According to the Lithuanian Court of Appeal, the General Prosecutor’s Office requested that the question of jurisdiction be resolved in a criminal case in which former judge V. Bavėjanas was charged with influence peddling and abuse of power without any evidence of bribery. The prosecution indicated that this criminal case was under the jurisdiction of the Vilnius Regional Court, but in certain circumstances it was appropriate to transfer it to another regional court.

By decision of the President of the Lithuanian Court of Appeal, in order to remove any doubts about the independence and impartiality of the court hearing the case and to ensure the important interests of justice, the case was transferred to the Šiauliai Regional Court.

This is the 10th in a large-scale pre-trial investigation into alleged corruption offenses committed by high-ranking judges, lawyers and others, and the first criminal case against one of the former judges.