Human rights organization visits Lithuanian spying suspect in Moscow prison

Anatoly Abritsov, lawyer of the Lithuanian citizen Aristidas Tamošaitis, told BNS that his client had a visit from representatives of the Public Monitoring Committee, which was co-founded by the Council of Europe a few years ago.

“Tamošaitis is treated well, he enjoys decent conditions and has no complaints,” said the lawyer.

On May 20, the Russian Federal Security Service said it had detained a Lithuanian intelligence officer working for the Second Investigation Department of the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defence. After the man was arrested for two months, Abritsov filed an appeal against the detention measure.

The report came three weeks after a Russian citizen, suspected of having spied for the FSB, was detained in Lithuania.

Officials of the Lithuanian Embassy in Russia have so far railed to meet with the Lithuanian suspect, Kęstutis Vaškelevičius of the Foreign Ministry told BNS on Wednesday. In his words, Lithuanian diplomats applied for a meeting with Tamošaitis back on May 20, but have not yet received a reply.

“We hope the meeting will take place this week,” said Vaškelevičius.

The Russian FSB said it had detained the Lithuanian intelligence agent red-handed in Moscow on May 19 after he had allegedly received classified information from a Russian citizen. According to the report, the Lithuanian allegedly admitted working for the Defence Ministry’s Second Investigation Department.

The ministry did not confirm Tamošaitis was employed at the department.