VILNIUS, July 27. /TASS/. The sentence, handed down by a Lithuanian court against the opposition politician Algirdas Paletskis, accused of spying for Russia, is an example of politicized justice, the Russian embassy in Vilnius said in its Twitter Tuesday.
"The verdict on the so-called Paletskis case is yet another example of a politicized kangaroo court in Lithuania, based on an obviously contrived accusation of espionage in Russia’s favor," the statement says.
The mission added that it hopes for the eventual triumph of justice.
"We hope that justice will eventually prevail and the totally innocent journalist would be released," the embassy said.
A right to appeal
According to the court ruling, Paletskis was found guilty and sentenced to six years in prison. The sentence is not final and could be challenged in the Lithuanian Court of Appeal. The prosecution demanded a sentence of nine years.
The case involved two suspects: the former leader of the Socialist People’s Front party Paletskis, and businessman Deimantas Bertauskas. They were accused of two episodes. One involves the collection of information about Lithuanian judges and prosecutors who worked on the 1991 January Events - allegedly on the request of Russian intelligence services; another one involved a search for medics, who would allegedly agree to issue a fake medical noted about the health of Russian citizen Yuri Mel, sentenced under the same case, who is suffering from diabetes.
Paletskis did not acknowledge his guilt, but did not refuse to testify. He was put under arrest in October 2018 and was released into intensive supervision in April 2020. Bertauskas, who cooperated with the investigation, has been acquitted.
No proof present
In early June, Paletskis said in a letter to the Respublika newspaper that the prosecution provided no proof of his guilt, apparently considering an abstract accusation to be enough.
According to the opposition figure, the final accusation sounded like this: he engaged in espionage under the request of an unidentified intelligence officer, and planned to gather various data, assigning an unidentified person to do so. He ironically proposed to amend the Lithuanian legislation by adding an offense of "unidentified espionage activity under a request of an unidentified intelligence officer."