The second court hearing on the case of the "International Neighborhood Forum" was held in Lithuania
On February 26 at 9: 20 in the hall on the second floor of the Vilnius District Court the second court session was held, where the hearing of the 28 volumes of the case of the "International Neighborhood Forum" (IFF) began on the merits, in which the chairman of the IFF Erika Švenčiūnienė is charged under article 118, paragraph 1, article 170-2, paragraph 1, of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter - CC); Kazimieras Juraitis is charged under Article 118, paragraph 1 of the CC (wording of Law No. IX-1495 of April 10, 2003, in force until June 2, 2022); Russian citizen Valery Ivanov is charged under Article 170-2, paragraph 1 of the CC.
During one hour and twenty minutes, the prosecution representative of the Lithuanian Prosecutor General's Office, prosecutor of the Department for Investigation of Organized Crime and Corruption, Ryadas Savickas, read out an abridged version of the Indictment (the full 157 pages). After that, the judge of the Criminal Cases Department, Mindaugas Povilanskas, who is in charge of the case, questioned each of the defendants about their agreement with the text of the indictment, to which he received a response from each of them:
Erika Švenčienienė - "I don't understand at all what the essence of the accusation is";
Kazimieras Juraitis - "I presented my journalistic documents to the court, according to my authority, I was working on collecting information, therefore I do not agree with the accusation";
Valery Ivanov - "the prosecutor, who read out the charges against me, does not know the facts from the investigation documents of the cases, which were conducted on the tragic events of January 13, 1991 in Vilnius, which I brought with the incriminated video broadcast".
At the next court session on the case, which will be held on March 14 at 13:30 the judge will question the invited witnesses.