BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

19/10/2006

Belarus KGB accuses former Lithuanian diplomat of involvement in a plot

Albinas Januska, former Secretary (Deputy Minister) of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, who all of a sudden left his job just now, and has been pretty often called an architect of Lithuanian security policy, might become a target of pursuit by the Belarus security services, Latvian daily Diena writes. Already in spring Belarus brought an action on the preparation of the coup d'etat in the country; the names of Januska and another Lithuanian diplomat were among the suspects on the list. According to Diena, Belarus KGB chief Stepan Sukhorenko had announced that any attempts to destabilize the situation in the country would be classified as terrorism and all the persons involved, without reference to the posts they occupy in their respective countries, would be detained and put to trial when in Belarus.

Belarus KGB also reports that it has managed to reveal an illegal organization Partnership, allegedly founded by the US National Democracy Institute. It is said that during the search some papers have been found proving that the Partnership had planned to realize a coup d'etat in Belarus and diplomats of Lithuania and Georgia were involved in the plot.

In an interview to the Vilnius-based national daily Lietuvos rytas Januska did not deny the fact that an action had been brought against him in Belarus. He expressed his satisfaction that Lithuanian authorities understood the political pretext of the case.

This April Januska's name could already be heard in the context of Belarus developments; a Russian TV channel aired recordings of phone conversations among "a high-ranking Lithuanian diplomat" and Givi Targamadze, Defence and Security Committe head of the Georgian parliament, who reportedly discussed a possibility of killing of the Belarus opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich. Januska told later that he left the Foreign Ministry and diplomatic service as otherwise he could not defend himself without exposing state secrets.

Diena writes that 46-year-old Januska was called the Grey Cardinal of Lithuania as he has had great influence also to presidential administration and security service, not speaking about the country's foreign policy. As AIA already wrote, his name was often mentioned lately in the connection with the death in Belarus of the intelligence officer and diplomat Vytautas Pociunas. It has been rumoured that Januska and his friends had sent the highly-qualified security officer to a modest post in Belarus to get rid of him, as Pociunas had allegedly bothered influential people in Lithuania to realize their economic interests.

Source:

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=1101