Former Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis lashed out at the chief prosecutor over the latter's inability to foresee a recent scandal in the anti-corruption bureau involving a large sum of stolen cash.
"We ordered [the Prosecutor's Office] to perform the probe. By law it is their duty to control the operative activities of KNAB [the anti-corruption bureau]. Now it shows the Prosecutor's Office has inspected nothing there for five years," Kalvitis told the Neatkariga Rita Avize daily in an interview.
Kalvitis' government fell at the end of last year after it had tried to remove KNAB's chief over bookkeeping irregularities. But thousands of people took to the streets in support of Aleksejs Loskutovs in the largest demonstrations since Latvia gained independence in 1991, ultimately forcing the government to resign.
Kalvitis ordered Prosecutor General Janis Maizitis to investigate the organization for what he said were perceived accounting irregularities related to undercover investigations.
But Maizitis said that though there were some offenses it was not enough to sack Loskutovs.
"I believe that the prosecutor general definitely has to assume responsibility 's in such a politically sensitive case he cannot avoid it. The government was sacrificed due to Loskutovs… how can he avoid responsibility?" Kalvitis said.
The anti-corruption bureau sacked two of its employees on April 17 over an unspecified amount of confiscated money that was discovered missing from the organization's coffers. The two employees, neither of whom was detained, had been responsible for cash seized during raids and arrests.
The amount of money which was stolen has been subject to widespread speculation among politicians and the media.
On April 19, former Health Minister Gundars Berzins told an LNT television news program that the missing money amounted to well over 100,000 lats (142,287 euros).
Loskutovs dismissed the comments as "absurd" in an interview with the Baltic News Service later that day. Both Loskutovs and prosecutors have repeatedly said that the amount of money missing was "significant" but less than 100,000 lats.
The KNAB head has accepted all responsibility for the affair.
"Of course, as head of the institution I am fully responsible for everything that is going on at the bureau," Loskutovs told the Baltic News Service. Kalvitis accused the Prosector's Office of covering up for Loskutovs by failing to conduct an adequate investigation.
"I have grounds to believe that, given the pressure of the protests organized by the opposition, the Prosecutor General's office either performed the inspection carelessly or did not perform it at all," the former prime minister said. "Loskutovs was deliberately covered."
Kalvitis said the scandal caused him to lose his trust in the Prosecutor's Office.
"My trust in the prosecutor general, who is entrusted with the control of the operative activities of the institution, has resulted in the situation that my forecasts were fulfilled 's it was possible to steal money at the institution," he said.
The Russian language publication Vesti Segodnya reported that the money had been confiscated in the case surrounding businesswoman Inara Vilkaste, the former wife of Vladimirs Vaskevics, who headed the customs criminal department.
The identity of the two employees that were sacked has not yet been revealed. Loskutovs said the employees had been working for the anti-corruption bureau "for quite a long time."
