BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

22/12/2006

Lithuania to hand over suspected Belarusian spy to Poland

The District Court in Vilnius has ordered today the handing over of a Belarusian man wanted in Poland for espionage to Polish authorities. Poland sent the request to the Lithuanian prosecutor general's office two weeks ago, and prosecutors subsequently asked the court to approve the extradition, Radio Polonia reports. The Vilnius District Court, acting on a request from Polish prosecutors, said the detained would be handed over to Poland in accordance with the European Convention on extradition and Lithuanian law.

The 40-year-old Sergey Monich was arrested in Vilnius on November 25 during a joint operation of Lithuanian and Polish secret services. He was caught while attempting to buy a list of Polish Foreign Ministry personnel with their telephone numbers and several confidential documents from the Warsaw ministry. Polish prosecutor Janusz Kaczmarek told reporters in Vilnius that, over the course of several years, Monich had met with Polish citizens in Lithuania and other countries in order to recruit them and to purchase secret information, news agency Interfax reported. Meetings with a Polish citizen Kszystof Gursky whom Monich had tried to recruit were taking place in Prague, Belarus and Vilnius. The Lithuanian State Security Department is also investigating Monich's activities to determine if he was involved in recruiting agents to spy against Lithuania, online paper Penki kontinentai says.

Monich denies the allegations, saying he is a victim of political provocation. Belarusian diplomat Anatoly Zhaltovsky told journalists that the decision would be appealed, according to Penki kontinentai. Investigators said the man had traveled to Lithuania several times on a tourist visa, meeting his Polish informers at different Vilnius restaurants and in the spa resort of Druskininkai, which is near the border with Poland and Belarus.

Source:

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=1174

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