Accused of activities in an anti-state organization, Bukais not only escaped from Latvia in the middle of summer, while crossing a water body with a SUP board, but also kidnapped and took his and his divorced wife’s daughter to Russia.
As the Minister of Foreign Affairs informs, the girl has now been brought back to Latvia. As can be understood from the politician’s post, the employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Education and Science and “others who worked to accomplish this” were involved in the recovery of the girl.
The Ministry of Justice informed the agency LETA that on the evening of September 11, the mentioned child returned to Latvia from Russia after crossing the border into Estonia.
The child’s mother had come to Russia on the recommendation of a Russian lawyer, whose contacts were given to the child’s mother by the Ministry of Justice of Latvia within the framework of the process established by the Hague Convention of 1980. In accordance with the procedure established by the Hague Convention, the child was placed in the care of the mother in Russia.
In order to protect the interests of the child and the mother, further comments will not be made at this time, the ministry stated.
Meanwhile, Minister of Internal Affairs Rihards Kozlovskis (JV) expressed his gratitude to the employees of the Internal Affairs Service – the State Police, the State Border Guard and the State Security Service, who actively worked to bring the child back to Latvia and provided all the necessary support to Monika Bukaine’s mother.
Bukais committed the abduction of his daughter in July, when he crossed the Zilupe river with a SUP board and illegally entered Russia from Latvia. The border crossers were detained in Russia, but the Latvian border guard requested official information from the Russian side about the status of persons in this country. The missing persons search organization “Bezvēsts.lv” wrote on the social network “Facebook” that on July 21, the father did not bring Monika Bukaina, who was born in 2019, back to his permanent place of residence.
The State Border Guard started a criminal process for illegal crossing of the state border, while the State Police started a criminal process for the kidnapping of a minor child. In the case opened by the police, on July 22, two persons were detained in Latvia, who were recognized as suspects for supporting the crime, and both of whom were detained by the court as a security measure.
As soon as the information about this crime was received, the services took all the necessary actions, including the child was announced as an international search, and the report about it was included in the “Interpol” database, and a request was sent to the Russian authorities through “Interpol” to inform about the location of the child and the decisions made, the police said.
Bukain’s trial in Latvia in the “Baltic Anti-Fascists” criminal case had not yet started, as the pre-trial investigation in the criminal case is still ongoing in the prosecutor’s office.
In this criminal case, there were several security measures for the accused, namely a ban on leaving the country, a ban on approaching certain persons, reporting to the State Police at a time specified by the State Police, notification of a change of residence. The prosecutor’s office had received information that one of the security measures had been violated, that is, on July 23, the accused had not arrived and reported to the police.
Last October, the prosecutor’s office brought charges against six Latvian nationals for leading the criminal organization “Baltic Antifascists” and participating in the crimes committed by this organization. At that time, three of the persons were wanted.
The charges were brought under the section of the Criminal Law for leading a criminal organization or participating in the crimes committed by such an organization. Such a crime can be punished with life imprisonment or deprivation of liberty for a period of ten to 20 years.
The mentioned persons are pro-Kremlin activists Bukais, Tatjana Andrijeca, Aleksandrs Žguns, Sergejs Vasiļjevs, Viktorija Matule and Roman Samuls.
The State Security Service (VDD) started the criminal trial against the so-called “Baltic anti-fascists” on November 28, 2022. In the course of the investigation, the VDD has established such criminal activities as “Baltic anti-fascists” such as illegal collection of undisclosed information about developments in Latvia with the intention of handing it over to Russian special services, glorification and justification of Russia’s extended war in Ukraine, as well as collection of financial funds and other resources to support the Russian army of the aggressor state in Ukraine.
The service has also found calls spread by the criminal organization to get involved in the ongoing hostilities in Ukraine on the side of Russia.
To coordinate crimes, the organization created the channel “Baltic Anti-Fascists” and several related channels on the Telegram platform.
2024-09-13 05:08:09