The Vilnius city district court hearing the case of events on 13 January 1991 decided to examine the former Soviet statesman Mikhail Gorbachev. It was confirmed by the Baltic News Service (BNS) participating in the court hearings and Robertas Povilaitis, the son of Apolinaras Povilaitis who was one of the casualties in the bloody January incident. In 1991, in Vilnius, 14 civilians were killed near the Press House, Radio and Television Committee building and the TV Tower.

Povilaitis earlier tried to convince law enforcement agencies to start a separate investigation into Gorbachev’s role and to give him the status of a special witness. Prosecutors noted that the available data does not support the conclusion that the ex-president was aware of intentions to use force and that he didn’t take measures to prevent them.

Responding to the request of Povilaitis, Prosecutors also noted that since 1992 attempts have been made to get explanations from Gorbachev regarding January events of 1991 but they have not yielded results.

Prosecutor Daiva Skorupskaitė noted that there is no possibility of granting him the status of special witness because Gorbachev refuses to talk with the Lithuanian General Prosecutor’s Office and there is no other means to oblige a foreign citizen to come to Lithuania to give evidence.

Povilaitis, in turn, stated that the Soviet President could have been aware of the event but that he deliberately ignored information showing that subordinates intended to commit and were committing war crimes and that he did nothing to prevent it.

At the end of April, the last chairman of the Committee for the State Security of Lithuania, Anzelmas Armonas, stated in court that the events of 13 January 1991 in Vilnius could have been prevented only by Gorbachev and Kryuchkov.

As noted by Delfi, currently, a part of the case of 13 January is being heard at Vilnius District Court. This case is one of the largest cases in the history of the courts of independent Lithuania due to its volume and the number of accused. There are two persons on the bench of accused and more than 60 accused are being brought to justice in absentia.

They are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. There are almost 500 affected people in this case and about a thousand witnesses. The case consists of 709 volumes of documentation; the indictment alone consists of 13 volumes.

In 1999, 6 people received prison terms for establishment of anti-government organizations and other crimes related to the incident.

  Lithuania, Gorbachev

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