Gapšys asks to move parole appeal from Kaunas court

Former Lithuanian MP Vytautas Gapšys, who is serving a prison sentence for corruption, has asked the Lithuanian Court of Appeal to assign his parole appeal to a court other than Kaunas Regional Court, LRT reported. He says he doubts the court can consider his case impartially.

Kaunas Regional Court was due to issue a decision on Monday on Gapšys’s bid for parole, but no decision was announced. The Lithuanian Court of Appeal has not yet ruled on his request concerning which court should hear the appeal, its president’s assistant for public relations, Venta Valčackienė, told ELTA.

Gapšys said he was initially told that one judge would hear his appeal and then challenged that judge. The court later sent him corrected information saying a panel of three judges would hear the case. He said the inaccurate information about how the appeal would be handled raised doubts about the court’s case-allocation practices.

In early September, Kaunas District Court rejected his parole bid after granting a prosecutor’s appeal. It refused to approve the Parole Commission’s decision to release Gapšys conditionally. The court said that although he had made some positive changes in prison, his rehabilitation was not yet stable enough to indicate successful reintegration into society. It also noted that he had been convicted of corruption-related crimes for a second time, which it said showed his criminal conduct was planned rather than accidental.

The ruling was appealed to Kaunas Regional Court. Gapšys is serving his sentence in an open-type facility in Kaunas and returns to his family in Vilnius at weekends. If he is not granted parole, he is due to remain in prison until February 24, 2028. The Supreme Court sentenced him to four years and three months in prison.

In 2023, the Lithuanian Court of Appeal found that Raimondas Kurlianskis, then vice-president of the MG Baltic concern, had asked Gapšys to use his position as an MP and influence over fellow party members to sway public officials. The court said the agreed illegal payments were disguised as a 12,100-euro discount on the Labour Party’s political advertising and a 15,000-euro donation to the public institution Art and Sports Projects.

The Labour Party, the Liberal Movement, MG Group, Kurlianskis and former MPs Eligijus Masiulis, Gintaras Steponavičius and Šarūnas Gustainis were also found guilty in the political corruption case. Gapšys, Kurlianskis and Masiulis received prison sentences. Masiulis has also been unsuccessful in seeking parole.