Court opens defamation case against comedian Artūras Orlauskas

Vilnius City District Court on Thursday began hearing a criminal case against comedian Artūras Orlauskas, who is accused of defaming television and radio host Algirdas Ramanauskas, LRT reported.

Prosecutor Renaldas Budrys said the charges relate to statements Orlauskas made in an episode of the online programme OpTV in November 2024 about why Ramanauskas had allegedly been dismissed from Lithuania’s national broadcaster, LRT.

According to the prosecutor, Orlauskas spread false information by claiming that Ramanauskas had been dismissed because of alcohol abuse and that his alleged addictions had become more frequent, disrupting the work of colleagues.

Budrys also said Orlauskas claimed that Ramanauskas had arrived late for filming the LRT programme Dviračio žinios, failed to learn his scripts and caused the entire creative team to work overtime.

Orlauskas denied the charges in court. He said he would give evidence after the other participants in the proceedings had been questioned.

Ramanauskas, who has been recognised as the injured party in the case, told the court that he watched the programme after learning about the statements and decided to contact law enforcement because he considered them defamatory.

He said he did not remember ever failing to learn his television scripts. If he had not known a script during filming, he said, it had not been a recurring problem.

Ramanauskas also denied having any addictions and said he consumed alcohol moderately.

“We used to communicate well, so this is very strange to me. Artūras and I have known each other since 1996. I would not want to speculate about why he did it. It is shocking to me that he needed to lie and slander,” Ramanauskas said.