Žemaitaitis rejects calls for Žebelienė to leave parliament board

Nemunas Aušra party leader Remigijus Žemaitaitis said he sees no reason for his party colleague Daiva Žebelienė to resign as deputy speaker of the Seimas after law enforcement searched her home, LRT reports.

“No one has been charged with anything. The investigation is ongoing, which is a normal and natural process,” Žemaitaitis told reporters at the Seimas on Thursday.

On Tuesday, the prosecutor’s office said searches had been carried out at the homes of five members of Nemunas Aušra as part of a pretrial investigation into the circumstances surrounding car rentals to the party. Žebelienė was among those searched.

Some members of the Seimas board said they would discuss whether Žebelienė could continue serving as deputy speaker.

According to law enforcement, the procedural actions were carried out to collect evidence relevant to an investigation launched in March. The investigation concerns possible fraud and seeks to determine whether a criminal offence was committed when Seimas members Remigijus Žemaitaitis and Daiva Petkevičienė rented their cars to Nemunas Aušra while also using the vehicles themselves.

The investigation is being conducted by officers from the Financial Crimes Investigation Service.

Žemaitaitis described the proceedings as a kind of “political circus,” saying they were driven by political ideology and attempts to isolate and portray his party as “black and bad.”