Lithuania’s Court of Appeals to pronounce verdict in spying case

The panel of three judges will conclude whether the two men had been validly sentenced to lengthy jail terms in the spying case.

The case has been heard since last July, including testimony of an explosives specialist and examination of documents in hearings behind closed doors.

A Siauliai court has sentenced Russian citizen Sergey Moiseyenko to 10 years and six months in prison for spying, unlawful possession of a large number of munitions, explosives and grenades, while former Lithuanian Air Force Aviation Base officer, captain Sergejus Pusinas was sent to prison for five years for spying.

Both of them appealed against the verdict pronounced in February of 2017. Pusinas wants his jail term curtailed to three years, while Moiseyenko wants to be cleared of all charges, claiming he had not committed any offense. If the appeal cannot be satisfied, the Russian citizen wants a shorter jail term, at least.

Meanwhile, the Prosecutor General’s Office agrees with the verdict in the spying case, asking to dismiss both appeals as ungrounded.

The Siauliai court found that Pusinas between 2012 and the end of 2014 collected information for Moiseyenko about Lithuania’s Armed Forces and operations of NATO air-policing missions, locations of military capacities, military operations in Afghanistan, intelligence aircrafts operated from remote locations, their flights and possible stationing locations.

The court also established that Russian intelligence had also received copies of documents of the Lithuanian Defense Ministry and copies of personal files of some officers of the Lithuanian Air Force Aviation Base. Some of the documents were classified.

The pre-trial investigation was opened in December of 2014 after Lithuania’s military intelligence collected information about Pusinas having been recruited by Russia’s intelligence back in 2012. According to the case materials, Pusinas worked for the service by handing over information via Moiseyenko.