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Belarus abused mutual legal assistance treaty, says Lithuania’s vice minister of justice

Belarus abused the interstate agreement on legal assistance in civil and criminal matters by using banking information against Belarusian human rights defenders, Tomas Vaitkevicius, Lithuania’s vice minister of justice, told BelaPAN on Friday.

Prominent Belarusian human rights defender Ales Byalyatski was arrested in Minsk on Thursday and accused of large-scale tax evasion on the basis of information about his account at a bank in Vilnius, which had been provided by the Lithuanian justice ministry.

“It is the stance of the justice ministry of Lithuania and the Lithuanian government that it is unacceptable to use the legal assistance agreement for non-legal political purposes,” Mr. Vaitkevicius said.

Cooperation in legal matters between Lithuania and Belarus is important for citizens of the two countries and “helps resolve issues relating to the prevention and detection of offenses penalized by our criminal laws,” Mr. Vaitkevicius noted.

According to him, Lithuania annually receives about 500 requests from Belarus for legal assistance and sends 300 to 400 such requests to Belarus.

“Until this case, we had been satisfied with cooperation with Belarus in legal matters,” Mr. Vaitkevicius said. He expressed regret that the legal assistance agreement was subjected to criticism in connection with the incident.

He noted that Lithuania would now suspend the legal assistance mechanism. “We won’t use it until we are sure that it is not used for purposes not provided for by the agreement,” he said.

Mr. Vaitkevicius said at a press conference held in Vilnius earlier in the day that the justice ministry had asked the bank (AB DnB NORD Bankas, owned by Norway's financial group) to provide information about Mr. Byalyatski’s account for the Belarusian law-enforcement authorities, but the bank had the right not to do that.

Mr. Vaitkevicius said that he did not see any mistake in his ministry’s move, as information about Mr. Byalyatski’s bank account was given as information about a bank account belonging to a private individual. He added that the ministry’s officers might have been unaware that Mr. Byalyatski was a human rights defender.

Article 19 of the Agreement between the Republic of Belarus and the Lithuanian Republic on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Matters says that legal assistance may be denied if it is deemed damaging to state sovereignty, security, rights and legitimate interests of citizens, or if it runs counter to national law.

Signed in Vilnius on October 20, 1992, the agreement came into force on July 11, 1993.