The Lithuanian daily Kauno Diena announced that the parliamentary National Security and Defence Committee is planning to question former Heads of State in relation to accusations of the CIA secret detention facilities in Lithuania.  In August, the USA channel ABC News reported on its website that Lithuania permitted to station a secret CIA facility in the outskirts of Vilnius for imprisonment of eight Al Qaeda fighters.  The network claimed that the secret facilities were stationed in Lithuanian until 2005.

According to the paper, next week the Parliament is considering to discuss a resolution on whether to approve a mandate for the National Security and Defence Committee to run a parliamentary probe on Lithuania’s part in transportation and imprisonment of individuals detained by the CIA Vilnius.  The paper notes that the resolution would grant the committee rights of a temporary commission and assign it by 22 December to investigate if a secret CIA facility operated in Lithuania.

The committee to clarify if such facilities ever operated in Lithuania and if so, whether the CIA inmates were transported to and jailed in Lithuania and if the Lithuanian state institutions took any part in the operation of secret CIA centres.

The Committee’s Chairperson Arvydas Anusauskas commented that the committee should be able to carry out the investigation and come up with conclusions on time.

Anusauskas said a plan of action for the investigation is under way and that the committee is considering which Lithuanian officials to question.

President Dalia Grybauskaite would not be asked to answer questions since she wasn’t in Lithuania during 2004-2005.  The President last week said she has “indirect suspicions” that the secret CIA centre may have existed in Lithuania.

However, the Committee will most likely question former president Valdas Adamkus, ex Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas, former foreign minister Antanas Valionis, who is currently Ambassador to Latvia and the former State Security Department chiefs Mecys Laurinkus (Ambassador to Georgia) and Arvydas Pocius.

All above-mentioned former officials vigorously denied that such facilities have ever excited in Lithuania, and Mr Brazauskas called such allegations ‘fantasy’.

The former President Adamkus said to BNS on 23 October “If this did actually occur, and is grounded with proof, we have to apologize to the international community that something like this went down in Lithuania, and those, who did it without informing the president and other departments, the Seimas, the Cabinet, in my eyes, are criminals,” he spoke.

The Lithuanian President Grybauskaite announced on 15 October said that Lithuania will not host a prisoner from Guantanamo until the suspicions regarding presence of the CIA secret prison in Lithuanian are cleared.