Investigation and Trials
The attacks stopped after the executions in Medininkai. Only during the August Coup in Moscow, the post in Kybartai was attacked on August 22, 1991. After the coup failed, the Soviet Union disintegrated. Members of OMON dispersed throughout the former union, many of them becoming citizens of Russia. The Lithuanian government attempts to investigate the attacks and prosecute the suspects, but the efforts are hindered by complex extradition requests. Already in December 1991, the Lithuanians presented to Russia a list of more than 20 people wanted for their involvement in January Events and Medininkai incident. However, the Lithuanians were refused even requests to question witnesses.
In December 2006, the Lithuanian prosecutors issued the European Arrest Warrant for arrest of Latvian citizen Konstantin Nikulin, a suspect in the Medininkai killings. He was arrested by Latvian police on November 28, 2007. In 2004, Nikulin was tried and received 2.5 years of suspended sentence for his involvement in the January 1991 events in Latvia. After the trial Nikulin became a key witness to an unrelated murder and changed his surname to Mikhailov as part of a witness protection program. On January 28, 2008, the Supreme Court of Latvia decided to extradite Mikhailov to Lithuania. In Lithuania he was jailed in the Lukiškės Prison awaiting the trial. The case has some 220 witnesses and volumes of written material. The statute of limitations for murder is 20 years; thus the expiration date would be July 2011. On May 11, 2011, Nikulin was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment; Nikulin vowed to appeal against the decision.
Other suspects in the case, namely commander Czeslaw Mlynnik, Alexander Ryzhov (Aleksandras Ryžovas), and Andrei Laktionov (Andrejus Laktionovas), are citizens of Russia and have not been extradited. In 2009, Ryzhov was tried for armed robbery in Saint Petersburg. Lithuanian requests for extradition were denied. Another suspect, Igor Gorban, was identified by the only survivor Tomas Šernas during Gorban's 2004 trial in Riga. However, Gorban was not charged due to lack of evidence.
Read more about this topic: Soviet OMON Assaults On Lithuanian Border Posts
Famous quotes containing the words investigation and and/or trials:
“There is no one kind of thing that we ‘perceive’ but many different kinds, the number being reducible if at all by scientific investigation and not by philosophy: pens are in many ways though not in all ways unlike rainbows, which are in many ways though not in all ways unlike after-images, which in turn are in many ways but not in all ways unlike pictures on the cinema-screen—and so on.”
—J.L. (John Langshaw)
“On the whole, yes, I would rather be the Chief Justice of the United States, and a quieter life than that which becomes at the White House is more in keeping with the temperament, but when taken into consideration that I go into history as President, and my children and my children’s children are the better placed on account of that fact, I am inclined to think that to be President well compensates one for all the trials and criticisms he has to bear and undergo.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)