Lithuanian Parliament Speaker Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen has confirmed that she met with Prosecutor General Nida Grunskienė on January 20 regarding the matter of stripping an MP of legal immunity and the prosecutor told her the allegations were related to the molestation of minors.
Opposition MPs called an extraordinary session on Thursday to question the speaker and the prosecutor general about a criminal investigation against former MP Kristijonas Bartoševičius who is suspected of sexual abuse of minors. The opposition suspect that someone may have leaked information about the investigation to Bartoševičius, who announced his resignation from the parliament just hours before the Prosecutor General’s Office revealed the investigation.
Čmilytė-Nielsen insists that she was approached by the prosecutor general on January 20 about stripping an MP of legal immunity, but was not told who the politician was.
“Without mentioning the specific articles of the Criminal Code, she informed me that one of the MPs was suspected of serious crimes, and she also said that it was related to the molestation of a minor or minors, and she told me what prison term that person was facing. I was very much shocked to hear about these allegations,” Čmilyte-Nielsen said on Thursday in response to MPs’ questions.
The speaker also said that the prosecutor general did not mention the name of the MP in question or their party affiliation, and she only confirmed that the person was not a member of the Liberal Movement, the party Čmilytė-Nielsen leads.
“The prosecutor general did not tell me the name of the MP, nor which group or party they belonged to, whether the person was a representative of the ruling majority or the opposition. She only mentioned that the suspected MP was not a member of the Liberal Movement group,” the speaker said.
Earlier this week, Čmilytė-Nielsen told reporters that Grunskienė had provided her with “de-personalised” information about possible allegations and that she only knew that the MP was suspected of serious crimes.
During Thursday's extraordinary Seimas session initiated by the opposition, Cmilyte-Nielsen provided her answer to MPs’ written questions and also said she could not identify the suspected MP from the provided de-personalised information.
Phone calls
On the eve of the extraordinary session, MP Radvilė Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė, who leads the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats’ (TS-LKD) political group in the parliament, confirmed that she had a phone call with Bartoševičius on January 20, the same day that the prosecutor general met the parliament speaker.
According to Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė, she spoke with Bartoševičius at around 14:00 because she had received a message from him informing he was resigning as MP. She insisted she did not know about the investigation and therefore could not have informed Bartoševičius about it.
In the evening of the same day, Bartoševičius, who was then on a parliamentary trip to Chile, submitted an electronic request to the Central Electoral Commission to revoke his mandate.
Members of the opposition suspect that Bartoševičius was urged to resign so that his name would not be made public as part of the sexual abuse investigation.
Next Monday, January 23, Bartoševičius confirmed to journalists that he was stepping down as a member of the parliament “for personal reasons”.
The Prosecutor General’s Office announced several hours later that Grunskienė was asking the parliament to strip the MP of his legal immunity so that he could be questioned in an investigation under the Criminal Code’s articles concerning sexual assault on a minor and a young child, and sexual molestation of a child.
The following week, prosecutors brought official charges against Bartoševičius. He is suspected of sexual abuse against four minors. The alleged crimes occurred during his tenure in the parliament that he started in 2020.
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