Court orders Saulius Skvernelis to keep wearing ankle monitor

Vilnius Regional Court has rejected lawmaker Saulius Skvernelis’s appeal and ordered him to continue wearing an ankle monitor in a corruption investigation, LRT reported, citing the Lithuanian news agency ELTA.

The court upheld a lower court ruling extending the electronic monitoring measure for two months, from August 2 to October 2. The decision was issued by Mindaugas Povilanskas, chairman of the criminal cases division of Vilnius Regional Court, in written proceedings.

The judge said investigators had established that Skvernelis breached the conditions of an earlier, less restrictive preventive measure by communicating with another suspect. The court therefore found that extending the stricter measure was justified.

Povilanskas said preventive measures were applied on the basis of a reasonable assumption that a suspect could take actions in the future that would obstruct the proceedings. He added that repeated breaches of the earlier measure meant the objectives set out in Article 119 of the Code of Criminal Procedure would not be achieved without extending the electronic monitoring.

The court said the lower court had properly assessed all legally relevant circumstances, that the grounds for electronic monitoring remained, and that extending it did not violate the principle of proportionality.

The ruling is final and cannot be appealed.

Skvernelis has said he disagrees with the restriction and previously argued that the ankle monitor interferes with his duties as a member of parliament.

The corruption investigation concerns the Plant Cultivation Service. Searches were carried out at Skvernelis’s home and office in February, and he was charged with suspected bribery in April.

Thirteen people were detained in December during the investigation, which later expanded to include 15 suspects. According to law enforcement, representatives of companies transporting plants and plant products systematically demanded and received large bribes in exchange for phytosanitary certificates issued to cargo carriers.

More than 100 searches produced over 1.3 million euros in cash, eight kilograms of gold valued at about 1 million euros, 11,000 packs of cigarettes, 14,000 litres of alcohol, cocaine and explosives, according to the authorities.