"I respect and appreciate the parliamentary Anticorruption Commission's conclusions but I see no legal basis to dismiss Raulušaitis," Valys told BNS on Tuesday, adding that he had trust in his deputy.
Deputy Prosecutor General Raulušaitis is accused in the Anticorruption Commission's conclusions of having failed to do his duties and created conditions for leaking of information about actions planned by state institutions. Moreover, he did not keep away from the case and failed to inform that his wife's uncle Algimantas Budrys held a high-ranking position in company Lietuvos Rytas. Budrys is the first deputy of editor-in-chief of the Lithuanian daily Lietuvos Rytas and is one of its shareholders.
Valys said he had been aware of the fact that Raulušaitis' wife was related to Budrys but it did not raise any doubts about the deputy's impartiality.
"Prosecutors of the Organized Crimes and Corruption Investigation Department were ordered to decide on the launch and organization of the pre-trial investigation, and Raulušaitis was ordered to coordinate institutional actions before the start of the investigation. I was aware of the fact that Raulušaitis' wife was related to one of the heads of Lietuvos Rytas, Budrys. I had no doubts about Raulušaitis' impartiality as the investigation had nothing to do with Lietuvos Rytas. Raulušaitis was not ordered to take any actions against this company and he did not make such decisions," Valys told BNS.
The head of the Prosecutor General's Office also said his former deputy Andrius Nevera had not told him about suspicions that Raulušaitis might have leaked information about planned actions against bank Snoras.
"I learnt of the fact that such suspicions existed during the State Security Department's investigation. These doubts were fully investigated during the above-mentioned investigation," the prosecutor general said.
Valys said the resignation of his former deputy Nevera had nothing to do with the Snoras case.
The Anticorruption Commission's conclusions contain Nevera's testimony that on the same day when the Lietuvos Rytas article came out, he received information from the Financial Crime Investigation Service "about presumptions that the information might have been leaked by Deputy Prosecutor General Raulušaitis, and an alleged motive for that was Raulušaitis and his wife's close relation to Budrys."
Before Snoras' nationalization last November, Lietuvos Rytas reported, citing anonymous sources, that "the Prosecutor General's Office has already issued sanctions for searching one of the banks and homes of its owners." The daily then did not specify a bank, only saying it was a "Lithuanian bank."
The Anti-Corruption Commission, which carried out an investigation into the dismissal of director of the Financial Crime Investigation Service, Vitalijus Gailius, and his deputy Vytautas Giržadas, has proposed reinstating Gailius and Giržadas as hey had been sacked unfoundedly. They also called on dismissing Palaitis and Raulušaitis.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė was also reproached in the report of giving specific orders to directly non-accountable institutions.
