Opposition MPs have collected enough signatures to call an extraordinary session of the Lithuanian parliament, Seimas. In the session, MPs plan to question the speaker and the prosecutor general who, they suspect, may have leaked investigation information to a conservative politician suspected of sexual abuse against minors.
Agnė Širinskienė, a representative of the Lithuanian Regions political group, confirmed to BNS that the initiators have collected the necessary 47 signatures to call an extraordinary session on Thursday.
Read more: Lithuanian conservative politician suspected of sexual abuse against 4 minors
The opposition suspect that conservative MP Kristijonas Bartoševičius, who gave up his seat last month, could have been informed about a criminal investigation against him. Bartoševičius announced he was resigning “for personal reasons” just hours before the Prosecutor General’s Office asked the parliament to strip him of his legal immunity in order to question him.
The agenda of the extraordinary session will include questioning Seimas Speaker Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen and Prosecutor General Nida Grunskienė. The parliament will also decide on setting up a commission to look into the suspected leak.
The Seimas speaker and the prosecutor general will be asked to provide details of their meeting where they discussed the request to strip Bartoševičius of his legal immunity. The speaker will also be asked if she shared information about Grunskienė’s visit with anyone.
On January 23, the Prosecutor General’s Office said Grunskienė had turned to the Seimas speaker on stripping Bartoševičius of his legal immunity, since the MP was the subject of an investigation into suspected sexual abuse against minors.
The statement came hours after Bartoševičius had announced he was resigning as an MP. He was on a business trip in Chile at the time and said he was resigning for personal reasons.
It later emerged that the prosecutor general met with the Seimas speaker on January 20 to inform her about the planned request. Čmilytė-Nielsen insists that she was not told who the MP in question was or which party he was from.
Last week, the Prosecutor’s Office said official suspicions were brought against Bartoševičius concerning alleged sexual abuse and molestation of four minors. The alleged crimes were committed after he had been elected to parliament in 2020.
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