Lithuania will ask Interpol to reject Russia's request to prosecute Lithuanian judges, Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said on Monday.
Russia's Investigative Committee said earlier on Monday that it had brought charges in absentia against three Lithuanian judges for delivering “a deliberately wrongful” sentence against more than 50 Russian citizens in the mass trial related to the Soviet crackdown on civilians in Vilnius in January 1991.
Read more: Russia brings charges against Lithuanian judges in absentia
“[Interior] Minister Agnė Bilotaitė and I have agreed that the Interior Ministry will turn to Interpol with a warning to categorically reject any Russian request to unlawfully prosecute Lithuanian officials,” Foreign Minister Landsbergis told BNS.
The Foreign Ministry, for its part, will warn all Lithuanian diplomatic missions and EU and NATO partners that Russia may try to use legal mechanisms for political purposes, according to Landsbergis.
“This is not the first time Russia has tried to manipulate international organisations in an attempt to distort history and deny the crimes of the Soviet regime,” he told BNS.
Lithuanian Justice Minister Evelina Dobrovolska described the Russian Investigative Committee's decision to bring charges against three Lithuanian judges as yet another attack on the legal system.
“We are protecting our officials. The Justice Ministry will continue to raise the issue consistently in the EU Council to seek a collective response to such illegal and politically motivated search warrants against EU citizens,” Dobrovolska told BNS.
“We cannot allow this to lead to an illegal detention and possible extradition,” she added.
It is necessary to create an international mechanism for protecting EU citizens against unjustified decisions by third countries, according to the minister.
In March 2019, three judges of Vilnius Regional Court – Virginija Pakalnytė-Tamošiūnaitė, Artūras Šumskas and Ainora Kornelija Macevičienė – convicted former Soviet Defence Minister Dmitry Yazov and more than 60 other former Soviet officials and military officers of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The majority of them were handed prison sentences in absentia.
Fourteen civilians were killed and hundreds more were wounded when Soviet troops stormed the TV tower and the Radio and Television Committee building in Vilnius in the early hours of January 13, 1991. The Soviet Union used military force in an attempt to remove the legitimate government of Lithuania which declared independence on March 11, 1990.
Read more: Occupied but not silenced. January 13, 1991: the night when Soviets stormed LRT
According to Russian officials, however, Lithuania was still an integral part of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the Soviet troops performed their official duties, acting in accordance with the Soviet law to ensure public order.
Russia's Investigative Committee also said it had taken steps “to put the accused [Lithuanian judges] on an international wanted list”.
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