2024-05-09 19:57:46
V. Obelienius was found guilty of bribery, and his son was found guilty of aiding and abetting bribery: they were respectively awarded 7.5 thousand. and 5.6 thousand EUR fines.
The investigation of the high-profile bribery story and its consideration in the courts has been going on for a decade, but the final point has not yet been reached – the convicted family members can appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court.
After the Kaunas district court acquitted both Obelienius, Kaunas prosecutor Laimonas Petreikis, who supported the accusation, appealed this decision to the Kaunas district court, whose panel upheld the complaint last week.
He poked at the mistakes of the court
Portal lrytas.lt received extensive data, which recorded eloquent details of secretly made audio recordings and criminal intelligence protocols, but in the opinion of Kaunas district court judge Sigita Meškauskienė, there was no bribery, no provocation to give a bribe.
In the complaint, the prosecutor’s office stated that the Kaunas District Court analyzed and evaluated only a part of the evidence examined in it, and the verdict on the acquittal of Obelieniei can be recognized as unfounded and illegal.
“The conclusions were made without evaluating all the evidence collected during the process, which is significant for the resolution of the case,” claims the complaint of the Kaunas District Prosecutor’s Office, submitted by the prosecutor supporting the accusation, Laimonas Petreikis.
The complaint emphasized that when evaluating the data obtained during the criminal investigation, only the defense version presented by the defendants and the allegedly corroborating, selectively selected testimony of the witness (the manager of the private medical company KB – Ed.) are basically based.
Scores were not made from bribes
While collecting data, officers conducted secret surveillance and used criminal intelligence measures.
The law enforcement relied on the protocols of the performance of criminal intelligence activities, which, as a clear impression was made, mention the figures of the amounts planned to be paid to V. Obelienius.
Judge S. Meškauskienė, who made a favorable decision in favor of him and his son, stated that possible ways of cooperation were only discussed “intensely and businesslikely” in the meetings.
However, the Kaunas District Court made a completely different decision, canceling the previous verdict.
“The panel of judges of the appellate court, having familiarized themselves with the arguments of the appeal and the material of the criminal case, having re-evaluated the evidence collected and examined in the criminal case, as well as the arguments presented to the court of appeal by the participants in the process, states that the verdict of the first instance court on acquittal was passed without a detailed investigation of the actual circumstances of the case, improper assessment of the evidence in the case and the provisions of legal acts significant to the case, not following the rules for evaluating the totality of the evidence”, states the new verdict of the Kaunas District Court.
Followed by suspicions
V. Obelienius and his son came under the radar of law enforcement in 2014-2015 – according to law enforcement, the then director of the Šilainiai polyclinic, being a person equivalent to a civil servant, agreed with the general director of the private company providing medical services, KB, to accept a bribe from the latter.
According to the officials, it was agreed that the money would reach V. Obelienis through his son G. Obelienis.
As claimed in the indictment, the director of the Šilainiai polyclinic chose a company managed by KB as a partner for the provision of public medical services, with which the polyclinic entered into a relevant contract.
According to the prosecutors, the specialists of the Šilainiai polyclinic were given conditions to provide medical services in the premises of a private company managed by KB and to refer polyclinic patients to this company.
For this, according to the prosecutor’s office, V. Obelienius agreed to accept a bribe from KB through his son – half of the amount, Šilainiai polyclinics are transferred to the KB company in accordance with the aforementioned official contract.
According to the officials, when G. Obelieni met with KB on October 15, 2014, the latter had also mentioned as an example the specific bribe amounts planned for V. Obelieni, ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 litas every month.
The director of Šilainiai polyclinic was accused of bribery, and his son, according to officials, played the role of an assistant in the bribery case.
He denied his guilt
V. Obelienius and his son denied their guilt – there was no bribery, no assistance in bribery and no provocation to give bribes.
The former head of the Šilainiai polyclinic taught that when discussing the “cardiology” contract, he was not referring to the corrupt money allocated to him, but to the legal income that should have gone to the polyclinic: when he said “us”, he was talking about nothing else, but the polyclinic.
“I did not accept, did not provoke, and did not intend to accept any bribes – how can you agree on a bribe and not receive it, not take it, even though no pre-trial investigation had yet been started at that time?” explained V. Obelienius.
According to G. Obelienius, the charges brought against him in the case of helping to give a bribe are unfounded.
According to the son of the former manager of the polyclinic, he explained that he cooperated in the medical field with KB, who at that time managed as many as 82 private clinics – for example, matters revolved around high-value transactions related to dental equipment, construction, prostheses.
G. Obelienius said that he did not hear that a bribe was being provoked, he did not engage in it himself, because he did not have to do it.
2024-05-09 19:57:46