This week the Court of Appeal of Lithuania announced the verdictby which the protagonists of the “MG Baltic” case were sent to prison for bribery.
Raimondis Kurlianskas, the former vice president of the concern, was sentenced to six years in prison, Eligijus Masiulis, the former leader of the Liberal Movement, was sentenced to six and a half years, and Vytautas Gapšius, the current member of the Seimas, representative of the Labor Party, was sentenced to five and a half years.
For such crimes so far, according to expertsonly one politician was sent to prison – Audrius Butkevičius, the former minister of national defense and the then parliamentarian, who was convicted in the last century.
On Friday, this trio, on the instructions of the police, already presented themselves to serve their sentences and went to prisons. About the court decision, sentencing and possible scenarios 15min spoke with legal expert, criminologist G. Sakalauskas.
– I would like to talk about the court decision, how do you assess it?
– He was unexpected, because it seemed that after the decision of the first instance everything was established that it was not a bribe, but I am partly happy that the Court of Appeals assessed differently and imposed punishments that are adequate and proportionate – exactly what provided by the articles of the Criminal Code.
Of course, there will be an appeal, I wonder what they will say, but basically, especially after the case of Viliaus Šiliauskas, in which, in my opinion, the sentence was unreasonably lenient, this kind of news is good, serious news.
– And tell me, what happened to make that decision turn upside down? It seems that the law is one, the Criminal Code is one, what happens to the courts?
#happen #criminologist #commented #scenarios #Baltic #case
2024-08-11 23:27:05