The Vilnius regional court has found Lithuanian lawyer Mantas Danielius guilty of spying for Belarus and sentenced him to nine years in prison.
Investigators say Danielius collected information on Belarusian opposition politicians, activists, and refugees residing in Lithuania and passed it to the Belarusian KGB via Belarusian propagandist Ksenia Lebedzeva.
The court ruling on September 20 also found Danielius guilty of attempting to intimidate a witness in his case. After he was released from pretrial detention and before his trial, Danielius sent a written message to the unspecified witness saying that he would "sharpen an ax." This court considered the message threatening to the witness and ordered his rearrest.
Danielius was initially arrested in September last year after Belarusian organizations operating in Lithuania informed law enforcement officials about his suspicious activities.
The case was jointly investigated by Lithuania’s State Security Department, Criminal Police Bureau, and the Vilnius District Prosecutor’s Office.
Prosecutors concluded that Lebedzeva had instructed Danielius on what information to collect, focusing on Belarusian organizations in Lithuania, activists who had fled Belarus to escape persecution, their evacuation routes, as well as the training and supply chains of the Kastus Kalinouski Regiment, a group of Belarusian volunteers who are fighting against invading Russian troops in Ukraine.
Investigators also say Belarusian intelligence was interested in information about top Belarusian opposition figures residing in Lithuania, including Vilnius-based opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
Danielius rejected all the charges, claiming that none of them had been proven during the trial and that there were no clear evidence proving that Lebedzeva was a KGB officer.
Danielius has several previous convictions for document forgery and fraud.
Tens of thousands of Belarusians have left Belarus, mostly to Lithuania and Poland, since Lukashenka claimed a sixth presidential mandate after a flawed presidential election in 2020 and unleashed a brutal crackdown on unprecedented pro-democracy demonstrations and on opposition leaders.
