Scandal over Byalyatski's case does not subsides in Lithuania

New checks over the case of a Belarusian human rights activist are being carried out.

The country's Chief Official Ethics Commission suspects the incident in the Ministry of Justice was investigated by the same officials, who disclosed information about Byalyatski's accounts.

The Chief Official Ethics Commission (COEC) launched an investigation last week to figure out if it was a conflict of interests in the actions by Andrada Bavejan, the chief of the legal assistance office at the International Law Department of the Lithuanian Ministry of Justice, who signed the documents divulging information about Byalyatski's bank accounts to Belarus, 15min.lt reports.

The  COEC agenda says the commission began an inquiry over Bavejan in connection with information on the media that she represented the Ministry of Justice in the working group to investigate the details of disclosing information about Byalyatski's bank details to Belarus.

The Ministry of Justice claims the working group had not settle questions of responsibility of officials, but had been formed to find out all system details and threats of cooperation with foreign law-enforcement agencies with participation of officers of all bodies working over the issue. The investigation over actions by certain officials is said to have been conducted independently.  Bavejan received a reprimand and was obliged to have an unscheduled qualifying exam.

We remind the Belarusian court sentenced human rights activist Ales Byalyatski to 4.5 years in prison for tax fraud on the grounds of the information divulged by Lithuania and Poland. The West condemned the court judgement calling it politically motivated. Lithuania apologized to Byalyatski's family and accused Minsk of using the international agreement for illegal aims.