Kaunas court sentences man to 14 years for 2002 murder

Kaunas Regional Court has sentenced Klaidas Kanarskas to 14 years in prison for the murder of a young woman more than 24 years ago, LRT reported, citing Lithuania’s General Prosecutor’s Office.

The murder, which shocked the public, took place in Kaunas in February 2002. Kanarskas was among the suspects identified at the time, but he was acquitted by the court in 2004. Another suspect, Jonas Snieška, was hiding abroad.

The investigation gained new significant information in 2019, when prosecutors from the General Prosecutor’s Office and officers from the Lithuanian Criminal Police Bureau began an intensive investigation into serious crimes allegedly committed by the armed criminal association known as the “Kamuoliniai”.

As part of that investigation, officials reviewed unsolved crimes, halted pre-trial investigations and criminal cases in which courts had issued acquittals. After checking the information and questioning dozens of people, investigators located Snieška in the United Kingdom in 2021. He was detained and transferred to Lithuania in a covert international operation carried out with British authorities.

On April 18, 2023, the Supreme Court of Lithuania granted a request by Prosecutor General Nida Grunskienė to annul Kanarskas’s 2004 acquittal and reopen the case. The court said the new circumstances could not have been known when the original decision was made and that the statute of limitations did not prevent proceedings over the intentional taking of a human life.

The case was transferred to Kaunas Regional Court on October 21, 2024. Prosecutors had also sought a 14-year sentence. The verdict can be appealed to the Lithuanian Court of Appeal.