Two Russians, former riot police, convicted in Lithuania
The Lithuanian Court of Appeal sentenced Vladimir Razvodov, a Russian citizen and former commander of the Vilnius riot police, in absentia to 12 years in prison for crimes he allegedly committed in 1991. The Russian Foreign Ministry believes that this is a political order.
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“We regard this decision as a continuation of the vicious line of official Vilnius to use justice for a political order,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters today.
She recalled that in June 2015, the Vilnius District Court “unexpectedly and to the obvious dissatisfaction of the Lithuanian authorities” acquitted the Russian of the charges brought against him of committing “war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
“Now this allegedly incorrect verdict, which did not reach the court in Lithuania, has been revised, the Russian citizen has been convicted. This is justice,” Zakharova said.
The Vilnius OMON was created in 1988. By the beginning of 1991, some of the employees - supporters of the separatists, who sought the separation of Lithuania from the USSR, left the detachment, but almost two-thirds of the personnel accepted the Soviet platform.
The command staff decided to transfer the detachment to Moscow. On the night of January 11-12, soldiers of the Vilnius riot police captured the detachment’s base and subsequently acted under the command of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.
In the following days, the detachment captured a number of government facilities in Vilnius, attacked customs posts established by the Lithuanian authorities, and disarmed the police controlled by the Lithuanian separatists.
After the events of August 1991, the Vilnius riot police were presented with an ultimatum from the Ministry of Internal Affairs: either the detachment disarms and remains on the territory of Lithuania, or is withdrawn to Russia and disbanded. Some of the employees remained in Lithuania, a group of about 60 people flew to Russia.
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