Juškevičius asks Lithuania’s Supreme Court to end child assault case

Vytautas Juškevičius, sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for seriously injuring a young girl in Raseiniai, has asked Lithuania’s Supreme Court to terminate his case, LRT reported.

The Supreme Court has received a cassation appeal from Juškevičius’s lawyer, court spokeswoman Tautvilė Merkevičiūtė told ELTA. The appeal seeks to overturn the conviction for serious bodily harm and disturbing public order, as well as the appellate court’s decision to reject his appeal, and to terminate the case.

The appeal has been referred to the Supreme Court’s panel for selecting cases, which will decide whether to accept it for examination.

In April, the appellate court rejected Juškevičius’s appeal and upheld the decision of the Šiauliai Regional Court. In addition to the prison sentence, Juškevičius was ordered to pay more than 20,000 euros to the State Health Insurance Fund for the child’s treatment and more than 3,000 euros in compensation for non-material damage.

The incident took place on December 25, 2022. The two-year-old girl was taken from Raseiniai Hospital to the Hospital of the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Kaunas Clinics with severe injuries. She was unconscious and in a coma. A pretrial investigation was opened the following day after authorities determined that she had been assaulted.

Rimantas Kėvalas, head of the Children’s Clinic at Kaunas Clinics, previously testified that the girl could have suffered such severe injuries only as a result of intentional violent actions. The girl lost a kidney.

According to the case file, the girl’s mother had visited Juškevičius with her twin daughters. On the morning of the incident, the mother was in the bathroom when she heard one of her daughters scream. She ran to the room and found the girl collapsed on the floor.

Juškevičius denied assaulting the girl during the pretrial investigation and the trial. Prosecutors said he had intentionally struck her in the abdomen, causing serious bodily harm. Police said it was unclear what had triggered his aggression, although they did not rule out that it may have been linked to the child wetting a mattress.