Lithuanian prosecutors order police to investigate ruling coalition leader’s claim of upcoming coup

Lithuania’s Prosecutor General’s Office has tasked police with assessing statements by Remigijus Žemaitaitis, leader of the ruling coalition’s Nemuno Aušra party, in which he claimed a violent “internal coup” would take place in the country this autumn, LRT reports.

General Prosecutor Nida Grunskienė announced on Tuesday that investigators would examine Žemaitaitis’s remarks—made during a May 22 broadcast on OpTV—under criminal procedure rules. “A decision has been made today to instruct police investigators to verify this information and proceed in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code. We will inform [the public] of the results,” Grunskienė told reporters.

The Nemuno Aušra leader had stated that Lithuania would witness a “brutal” coup between September and October, involving “physical confrontations.” Presidential national security advisor Andrius Varnelis later told journalists that authorities possessed no evidence of such a plot but declined to comment further on Žemaitaitis’s statements.

This marks the second police probe into Žemaitaitis’s public remarks on the same channel. In March, investigators launched a pre-trial investigation after he referred to Lithuania’s March 11, 1990, independence declaration as a “coup” and called signatories of the Act of Independence “rebels.” That case centers on potential violations of laws prohibiting public endorsement or gross trivialization of international crimes, including those committed by the USSR or Nazi Germany.

Žemaitaitis, a former MP, was convicted in December 2025 by a first-instance court for inciting hatred and Holocaust denial over social media posts—including claims that Jews had contributed to the “annihilation of the Lithuanian nation” and comparisons of Israelis to animals. The ruling, currently under appeal, led to his resignation from parliament in April after the Constitutional Court found he had violated his oath of office and “grossly breached” the constitution. He has since announced plans to run in upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections.