Lithuania calls the ambassador from Austria

Lithuania President Dalya Grybauskaite ordered the Foreign Ministry to withdraw the republic’s ambassador to Austria for consultations in connection with Vienna's refusal to give the former alpha commander Mikhail Golovatov, the Delfi agency reports. “According to the president, Austria’s haste in the release of the suspect in the“ case of January 13 ”is a politically unjustified action that compromises the cooperation of the European Union in the field of law,” said Presidential Advisor Dive Ulbinayt at a press conference after a meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Prosecutor General.

The day before, Mikhail Golovatov, detained last Thursday in Austria, returned to Russia. The Austrian police said she had no complaints about him. Golovatov was arrested in the case of the assault on the Vilnius television tower in 1991. The pan -European warrant for his arrest was issued by the Prosecutor General of Lithuania. The Lithuanian authorities demanded the issuance of a former soldier. At the same time, the Lithuanian prosecutor Thomas Krushna emphasized that the Austrian court will decide the fate of Golovatov.

Mikhail Golovatov commanded the Alpha special forces in 1991, when the Soviet Union held several armed shares in response to declaration of independence by Lithuania. The Soviet paratroopers and fighters of the Alpha group captured a television tower in Vilnius, who guarded 1000 unarmed people. As a result of the assault, 14 people were killed, hundreds were injured. Golovatov himself claims that he had nothing to do with the operation.

For the crimes committed by the Soviet military on January 13, 1991, the Vilnius District Court sentenced six people in 1999, another 23 remain suspects in this case, an investigation is being conducted. Of the 23 suspects - 21 citizens of Russia and two citizens of Belarus.

Last year, crimes incriminated by the suspect were re -qualified in accordance with the 100th article of the Lithuanian Criminal Code, which provides for liability for the prohibited by international law. In March of this year, the Lithuanian Seim of Lithuania adopted amendments to the Criminal Code, according to which the statute of limitations is not applied to such crimes, and the maximum established punishment is lifelong imprisonment.

According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, 94 petitions for legal assistance to Belarus, Russia and Germany were sent over the entire period of the investigation, but only negative answers were received. Currently, an international search for suspects in the European Union is underway, and European arrest orders have been issued.

The Russian side does not see any grounds for making any complaints to her on the 1991 January events and offers to leave the past to the court of historians.

In May 2011, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Lithuania sent an appeal to Russian officials with a request to interrogate the former President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev in the case of events on January 13, 1991. "The prosecutors of the Prosecutor General’s Office prepared and sent a request for legal assistance to the Russian Federation in order to interview the former president of the Soviet Union," the press release of the Prosecutor General’s Office says.

In January of this year, the Minister of Defense of Lithuania RASA Yuknyavichene said that Lithuania was counting on compensation from Russia for the death of people during those events. “Just as Germany compensates to other peoples what was done decades ago, so, I think that honest leaders of honest states should always be guided by the same principles,” Yuknyavichene said. However, according to her, first it is necessary to "triumph justice." “I am surprised when there is not even a recognition from the officials of Russia that the perpetrators in those events should appear before the court. And we are waiting, and this is not easy, our prosecutor’s office is working to achieve legal assistance from Russia - to find those who did it, who killed people, and so that justice triumphs. This is the most important thing,” the Minister of Defense said.