Danielius also wants law enforcement to assess the actions of Remigijus Bridikis, Deputy Director of the State Security Department (VSD). The accused believes that one of his deputies may come under fire for, according to Mr Danielius, disclosing the identities of Belarusian oppositionists recruited by the DSS and working as agents of the DSS in a 2022 report. This was the basis for the opening of the Danielius case.
The Vilnius Regional Court concluded the criminal case last week and will pronounce a verdict against the accused on 20 September.
„There is no evidence of a special services assignment to a foreign country, only communication with Ksenia Lebedeva; there is no clear evidence in the case that she is a KGB cadre officer; if I dropped an article link on my initiative, it is not espionage,“ Danielius said.
He believes the charges against him are based on speculation and assumptions and hopes to be acquitted.
„The charges against me do not refer to any tasks that may have been formulated for me by the KGB or the Belarusian state, but on the contrary, they refer to the cooperation with the KGB of another person, Ms Lebedeva, who, as the wording of the indictment shows, did not have any mandate, permission or task to recruit me to work for the KGB or to be a KGB agent“, says Mr Danielius.
He sent his closing speech, which he delivered in court last week, by letter to an Elta reporter.
Mr Danielius argues that the prosecutor in this case did not investigate exculpatory evidence but only presented incriminating evidence, even though the law requires that both be investigated.
„The indictment's allegations that I joined opposition organisations 'under the guise of volunteering' are false. The witness, Olga Karach, has consistently maintained, both in court and during the pre-trial investigation, that a contract for legal services was concluded with me, Mantas Danielius, and that, at least at the beginning, I was paid by Mūsų Namai for the provision of these services,“ says M. Danielius.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, under the guise of volunteering, Mr Danielius communicated with organisations in Lithuania, uniting the democratic opposition to the Belarusian regime and with individuals who moved to Lithuania after the Belarusian presidential elections in August 2020 to avoid arrest, imprisonment or other legal persecution.
According to the case, the accused visited the premises of Belarusian opposition organisations, participated in events, and allegedly collected and transmitted information about their activities, ongoing projects, sources of funding, persons belonging to the organisations and their meetings.
In his letter to Elta, Mr Danielius also submitted the response of the Office of the Intelligence Ombudsmen of the Republic of Lithuania to his complaint – the accused demanded an investigation into whether the DSS and the Second Department of Operational Services under the Ministry of National Defence (MoD) had lawfully processed his data properly. The accused also requested an investigation into the actions of the DSS.
In a reply sent to Mr Danielius in July by the Head the Intelligence Ombudsman, Nortautas Statkus, it was stated that a decision had been taken to refuse to deal with the complaint, as the same issue was being examined by the court.
Accused of collecting information of interest to the Belarusian regime for a year
In September last year, when referring the case to the court, the prosecutor's office said that, according to the investigation, between January 2022 and February 2023, the accused, Mr Danielius, had carried out the tasks of a Belarusian national cooperating with the Belarusian regime's intelligence organisation, collecting and transmitting information of interest to her. The Belarusian national in question is Kseniya Lebedeva, a presenter in the Minsk-controlled media.
„We discussed publications; neither I nor Lebedeva had tasks assigned by the KGB,“ says Mr Danielius.
He said he wanted to show what representatives of Belarusian opposition organisations who came to Lithuania were like. According to the accused, they were trying to embezzle money to support the opposition.
Giedrius Tarasevičius, the prosecutor of the Vilnius Regional Prosecutor's Office, who is supporting the prosecution in Danielius's case, informed the court that the investigation against Lebedeva is continuing and that she has been recognised as a suspect in absentia. A search for her has been announced through Interpol and Europol.
One witness was killed, and several went back to Belarus
Danielius, a Lithuanian citizen, is accused of collecting and possibly passing on information to Belarusian intelligence about Belarusian opposition organisations operating in Lithuania and the Belarusian Konstantin Kalinowski regiment in Ukraine.
Viktoras Savičius, who left Belarus in 2021, served in the Konstantin Kalinowski Regiment of the International Ukrainian Defence Legion in 2022 and returned to Vilnius after his service. According to the case, in August 2022, Mr Danielius, acting on Lebedeva's instructions, arranged a meeting with the Belarusian national in Vilnius, where he persuaded him that the US Embassy was interested in information on the regiment's composition, weapons, logistics, and supply chains. After recording the conversation with Savičius, Daniel forwarded it via Telegram to Lebedeva.
The Vilnius Regional Court hearing Mr Danielius's case never managed to interview Mr Savičius, who was killed in a car accident in Grigiškės in October last year.
„Savičius said that the money did not reach the regiment, that his story was not disinformation, which was later proved by the purges in the army initiated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy,“ said Mr Danielius.
According to the accused, the two Belarusian „oppositionists“ informed the court that they had returned to Belarus to live and did not agree to testify before the Lithuanian courts.
