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Roundup: Lithuania's ousted president interrogated in investigation into influence peddling

Xinhua, March 1, 2016 Adjust font size:

Rolandas Paksas, the ousted president of Lithuania, was interrogated on Monday in an investigation on trading in influence that involved the chief of the country's largest daily newspaper.

Paksas, also a European Parliament member and leader of Lithuania's ruling Order and Justice party, was interrogated by the country's Special Investigation Service (SIS) as a special witness, SIS officials told local media.

SIS suspects that the head of one of the country's largest media groups bribed Paksas so that Paksas would influence his party members working at the ministry of environment, "in order that they would allow the exploitation of a newly built shopping mall owned by one of the retail chains in Prienai," SIS announced in a press release.

Although SIS revealed only the initials of the media group head's name, local media announced the suspect was Gedvydas Vainauskas, the co-owner of Lietuvos rytas, the country's largest newspaper.

Paksas confirmed the SIS had interrogated him about his relations with Vainauskas and Norfa, one of the country's retail chains. According to Paksas, the investigation is politically motivated.

"Today, I think that democracy in Lithuania has ceased to exist," Paksas was quoted as saying by news website 15min.lt.

According to 15min.lt, Vainauskas met Paksas later on Monday and was soon after taken in for questioning by SIS officials. Vainauskas wasn't available for comment on Monday.

Dainius Dundulis, the owner of Norfa, told business news website vz.lt the company hadn't received any documents with possible allegations from SIS.

Algirdas Butkevicius, the country's prime minister, declined to elaborate on whether the investigation would affect the ruling coalition, but reminded Paksas was neither a cabinet member, nor a member of parliament.

According to political scientists, the story will take its toll on the Order and Justice party's public image.

"Regardless of the outcome of the investigation, a party that is constantly involved with such kind of stories builds itself an image of being always involved with illegal matters," Tomas Janeliunas, a professor at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Vilnius University, told Lithuanian national television LRT.

It's not the first investigation connected with members of the ruling coalition party in recent years. At the end of last year, SIS brought suspicions against the party of selling influence and money laundering. Endit