Panel probing MP Bastys’ work halts operations until committee’s conclusions

“We reached a conclusion that two commissions working with regard to a single individual will have their operations overlap in certain situations, therefore, we decided to suspend the work of the special commission until the ad hoc commission takes its decision. After its conclusion, the special commission will continue the work and analyze the validity of the collected evidence for impeachment,” the special commission’s chairman MP Dainius Gaižauskas of the ruling Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union told journalists after the group’s meeting on Wednesday.

The decision was taken with six votes against five.

Bastys may face impeachment over his links specified by the State Security Department with Yevgeny Kostin, who is seen as a representative of the Russian state nuclear energy corporation 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. According to the VSD, these links make Bastys vulnerable and would endanger state secrets if he were given access to them.

The links are also being investigated by the National Security and Defence Committee operating as an ad hoc commission.