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| 21.12.200908:35 (GMT) | AIA already reported that Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite unexpectedly required the Foreign Ministry to recall Lithuania’s ambassador to Georgia, the former director of the State Security Department (VSD) Mecis Laurinkus because of the loss of credibility. Laurinkus became Lithuania’s ambassador to Georgia on September 2, 2008. He was quite unexpectedly moved to Georgia from Spain, where he was ambassador from 2004. Now it appears that Laurinkus in his time was directly involved in the possible activities of a secret CIA prison in Lithuania, and probably in the preparation of impeachment of the then President of Lithuania Rolandas Paksas, Russian online paper Svobodnaja Pressa reports.
Now the parliamentary investigation of the CIA secret prison story has been going on in Lithuania. During the questioning, Paksas surprised everyone stating that Laurinkus, as the State Security Department director at the time, asked in spring 2003 in a confidential conversation whether it was possible to informally bring to Lithuania people whom the US were accusing of terrorism. According to Paksas, he categorically rejected the secret service boss's proposal. As a result, in the fall of that year Laurinkus forwarded to the General Prosecutor's Office a report which said that Paksas had been linked to international criminal networks and posed a threat to national security. This report served as the basis to begin the process of impeachment at the Seimas of Lithuania. Paksas denied all charges at court. Analysts now conclude that refusing to create secret prisons, Paksas during the confidential interviews in spring 2003 insulted the US officials instead of the head of Lithuania’s secret service, Svobodnaja Pressa marks. Laurinkus, as it turned out, has been directly implicated in the scandal, repeatedly argued that such an inquiry was harming Lithuania and was dangerous for the security services, the online paper adds.
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