MPs to receive bid to probe illegal influence to politicians, institutions

The initiative has secured backing from 46 lawmakers, mainly representing the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union along with the conservatives‘ leader Gabrielius Landsbergis and five members of the Order and Justice party.

The proposal envisages an ad hoc commission to establish cases when “contacts with persons who may threaten state interests were aimed at unlawfully influencing decisions made by state institutions or unlawfully influencing politicians and/or political processes,” as well as “financing cases of political parties and individual politicians that can threaten state interests when there were attempts to unlawfully influence decisions made by state institutions or unlawfully influencing politicians and/or political processes.”

Under the proposal, the commission should finished its work by Dec. 1.

Bakas has told journalists that the new parliamentary probe was a result of the disclosed ties of Social Democratic MP Mindaugas Bastys with Yevgeny Kostin, who is seen as a representative of Rosatom, Piotr Voyeiko, a former KGB agent, Ernest Matskevich, a journalist of the Russian state channel RTR, Saturnas Dubininkas, who is said to be a former Kaunas mafia leader, and Vadim Pakhomov, a businessman suspected of illegal activity. Bastys now faces impeachment over the suspicions.

After prosecutors brought suspicions against the Liberal Movement and the Labor Party, a decision was taken to establish possible business influence upon politicians.