Pedophilia documents surrendered to intelligence

RIGA — The documents that purportedly implicate two top-ranking government officials in a pedophile scandal were handed from a parliamentary investigative committee to intelligence officials Feb. 28 neatly wrapped in a plastic shopping bag.

The exchange came a day before a hearing on charges that the committee head Janis Adamsons had possible connections to the KGB.

The parliamentary committee investigating a pedophile ring that is allegedly linked to Prime Minister Andris Skele and Justice Minister Valdis Birkavs turned over their findings Feb. 28 to the apolitical Constitution Protection Office, a secretive arm of the Interior Ministry that coordinates intelligence gathering in Latvia.

Documents reportedly including interviews with witnesses, notes from the committee's meetings and video tapes were handed over.

Constitution Protection Office Deputy Director Uldis Dzenitis said this week he did not know whether the office would continue the investigation itself or if it would hand the potential evidence over to the country's law enforcement authorities.

"The CPO will take steps permissible under the criminal proceedings code and the operative actions law," he said during a brief press conference.

Dzenitis was unavailable for further comment this week.

Adamsons stunned parliament Feb. 17 when he announced that Skele and Birkavs were connected to the pedophile investigation, which began last October after a Latvian television program ran a story last September featuring two boys who anonymously outlined a pedophile ring that they said reaches the top echelons of government.

Since Adamsons' announcement, the committee has been under pressure, including a hunger strike by Birkavs, to provide evidence to the country's General Prosecutor's Office, which Adamsons has publicly scorned as a body pulled by political strings and which is now itself the subject of investigation.

Adamsons said he would wait for Prosecutor General Janis Skrastins to step down in early April before he would turn the documents over.

But he reached a compromise approved by the committee to give them to the CPO.

Both Birkavs and Skele have denounced Adamsons and the allegations against them.

Meanwhile, Adamsons is facing an investigation into his involvement with the KGB during his tenure as a border guard, an investigation that has been postponed since Nov. 1 because of Adamsons' investigation into the pedophile case.

Prosecutors say they can prove Adamsons was appointed to the border patrol during the Soviet regime by the KGB.

Adamsons maintains he was appointed by the USSR border guard, not the KGB.

The Prosecutor General's Office, he said, "has been working tendentiously and is not interested in clarifying the truth."

If it is proved that Adamsons is connected to the KGB he could lose his seat in parliament.

A verdict is expected late this week.