Lithuania’s outgoing security chief says saddened by criticism of inactivity

Gediminas Grina
DELFI / Mindaugas Ažušilis

“On a number of occasions it was unfortunate to hear criticism about idleness, while we were carrying out important investigations, results of which were made public a few years later or never went public at all. Ordinary intelligence officers made extensive efforts to achieve tangible results that the society would be aware of,” Grina said in a report of the department’s 2014 operations published on Monday.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė has repeatedly criticized the department for merely collecting information and notifying state leaders rather than taking action to prevent and eliminate the threats.

In Grina’s words, the change of the geopolitical situation and the type of threats became known to the public, as well.

“The so-called ‘peaceful’ areas, such as banking, telecommunications, business and the media, increasingly often become targets of hostile intelligence,” the former director emphasized.

In the report of the State Security Department’s operations, Grina also gave a critical view of the possibility for the department to be headed by a politician or a law-enforcement officer.

“The leader must possess outstanding competences, experience and capacities, which are usually difficult to acquire in the political arena or when seeking a career in the interior or the law-enforcement system,” Grina stated.

Grina said he imagines “a member of the national security or defence system” at the helm of the department, as its “operations are an element of the state defence.”

“By handing over the leadership of the service, I hope that the department will remain a depoliticized and independent institution with strict liability and precision compliance to the law, which, as the case was until now, employs not only disciplined but also patriotic, brave, intellectual officers who do not count their working hours and whose experience and competences are applauded by security and intelligence institutions of partner-countries,” he said in the report.

After five years in office, Grina was sacked from the post of the department’s director on April 10 after expiry of term.

Earlier on Monday, Grybauskaitė signed a decree to appoint signed former chief of the army’s Special Operations Forces Darius Jauniškis as the head for the State Security Department for a five-year term. Jauniškis will assume the office on Tuesday after taking an oath.

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