Gajauskaitė remains convicted of attempting to provoke riots

Former parliamentary candidate Irma Gajauskaitė remains convicted of attempting to provoke riots, but a court has suspended her 40-day arrest sentence for one year, LRT reported on Monday.

The Šiauliai Regional Court partially upheld Gajauskaitė’s appeal. It acquitted her of publicly insulting Jewish people and released her from criminal liability over causing physical pain to her brother, ending that part of the case.

In February, the Šiauliai District Court had found Gajauskaitė guilty of attempting to organise riots, publicly insulting a group of people on the grounds of their nationality and causing physical pain to a close relative. It sentenced her to 75 days of arrest and ordered the confiscation of her computer and mobile phone.

The regional court upheld the 40-day arrest sentence for attempting to provoke riots, but ruled that it did not need to be served immediately. The judges said the sentence’s aims could be met without detaining Gajauskaitė, noting that no aggravating circumstances had been identified and that there was no evidence she had committed another offence or received an administrative penalty since the initial verdict.

The court said the evidence did not establish beyond doubt that Gajauskaitė had committed the offence of publicly insulting Jewish people. It also found that her actions toward her brother were not sufficiently serious to warrant criminal liability, citing the limited intensity of the incident and the absence of lasting injury.

The case followed a video Gajauskaitė posted on social media in which she called on people to use violence against those taking part in and organising a parliamentary election debate in Vilnius in October 2024. She urged viewers to bring baseball bats, pitchforks and scythes and use them to “settle scores”, and spoke about riots and people taking justice into their own hands.