Moscow, Dec 14 (EFE) .- Russia has filed an accusation in absentia against three Lithuanian judges for having sentenced more than 50 citizens of the Russian Federation to prison terms in 2019 “unfairly” for their role in the bloody attack which took place in January 1991 in Lithuania to prevent its independence.
Russia’s Investigation Committee indicated in a statement that the president of the Vilnius regional court, Ainora Maceviciene, and judges Virginija Pakalnyte-Tamošiunaite and Arturas Shumskas, are charged under article 305, paragraph 2, of the Russian Criminal Code for “ruling knowingly an unjust court sentence of imprisonment of citizens of the Russian Federation “.
“The investigation has taken the necessary measures to organize an international search for the accused,” said the official representative of the Investigation Committee, Svetlana Petrenko.
On March 27, 2019, the Lithuanian court convicted 67 people – most in absentia – for war crimes and crimes against humanity for their involvement in an attack against the Lithuanian independence movement on January 13, 1991 in which the Soviet army killed fourteen people and wounded 700 others.
Lithuania was the first Soviet republic to proclaim its independence, in March 1990, to which Moscow responded first with an economic blockade and, later, with the frustrated attack on strategic points in Vilnius in January 1991 against a crowd of defending citizens. the government’s decision.
The Alpha group, the special force of the Soviet army led at the time by former KGB officer Mikhail Golovátov, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison, participated in the seizure of the Lithuanian television tower and radio television, according to the Baltic news network. BNN.
Former USSR Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov, who died this year, was also sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Those sentenced to between four and 14 years in prison include military personnel, officials from the Communist Party and the KGB.
The Investigation Committee, which opened a criminal case against the judges in April 2019, nonetheless considers that, at the time of the verdict, “the judges knew that the events in Vilnius (…) occurred in the period in which the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic was not an independent state and was part of the Soviet Union. “
Lithuania’s independence was recognized in September 1991, the agency maintains in its statement, which adds that in January of that year “the military of the Soviet Union carried out their official duties and acted in accordance with the legislation of the Soviet Union to preserve public order “. EFE
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