Kurlianskis asks Supreme Court to reopen corruption case

LRT reported that Raimondas Kurlianskis’s lawyer has asked Lithuania’s Supreme Court to reopen the criminal case in which the former MG Baltic political corruption defendant was convicted. The Supreme Court confirmed the request to the ELTA news agency.

The court’s judicial selection panel will decide whether to accept the application for consideration.

The request is based on a July 7 ruling by Lithuania’s Constitutional Court, which found that some provisions of the Intelligence Law violated the Constitution and the constitutional principle of the rule of law.

Kurlianskis had asked the Constitutional Court to assess the legality of intelligence operations used to collect information about him. The Constitutional Court said lawmakers may permit certain intelligence measures to protect national security, but that extensions of such measures and the storage and use of intelligence information in criminal proceedings must be regulated in a way that does not violate people’s constitutional rights and freedoms.

The court found unconstitutional provisions governing the collection of intelligence about a person’s private life through covert measures, as well as the conditions and deadlines for storing and transferring that information. It also said the law must set deadlines for periodically reviewing whether intelligence information needs to be retained, destroying information that has not been confirmed or is no longer necessary, and using such information in criminal proceedings.

The Constitutional Court also ruled unconstitutional provisions allowing a district court judge’s refusal to authorise or extend intelligence measures to be appealed to the chair of the same district court rather than to a higher court.

Kurlianskis is currently serving a five-year-and-six-month prison sentence for corruption-related crimes in an open-type prison.

During proceedings in the MG Baltic political corruption case, Kurlianskis and his lawyers argued that surveillance lasting more than 10 years had been disproportionate and unlawful. His lawyer, Simonas Slapšinskas, said that two criminal intelligence investigations had been opened against his client and that information collected in one case had been used in the other, contrary to provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

According to Slapšinskas, the State Security Department carried out intelligence operations against Kurlianskis from 2005 to 2018. The lawyer said the measures were disproportionate, particularly because Kurlianskis had been monitored for more than 10 years without an investigation being launched. Kurlianskis subsequently filed an individual complaint with the Constitutional Court.