VILNIUS - The police manhunt for Drasius Kedys, 37, continues while his army of fans grows. Prosecutors say they believe he participated in a double murder. However, for a large part of Lithuanian society he has become some kind of fighter against the corrupt legal system and a pedophile mafia.
On Oct. 16, during a press conference, Kestutis Betingis, chief prosecutor of the Kaunas District Prosecutor's Office, said that "there is enough evidence to state that Kedys is alive and he is hiding either in Lithuania, or in the near abroad."
He also said that there is little doubt about Kedys' involvement in the killings. "His traces are all over the locations of the killings," Betingis said. He pointed out that the Volkswagen Transporter van which was used during both killings was bought by Kedys a short time before the crime.
"The suspect is Kedys. However, we are looking not only for him. We are looking for at least one other man. The main version is as follows - this crime was committed by Kedys and his accomplices. They are armed and dangerous," Betingis said, adding that at least one of the accomplices could be a man from the criminal world.
He urged people to supply all information about Kedys to the police. Usually during such manhunts the police get a lot of calls from people who saw something and wish to help. An especially large number of such calls are received during the full moon. However, despite the fact that on the day of the killings and several days afterwards there was a full moon, the police received very few calls.
Kedys disappeared on Oct. 5 when Jonas Furmanavicius, Kaunas district court judge, and Violeta Naruseviciene, an aunt of Kedys' daughter, were shot dead.
Last week prosecutors announced that several months ago they brought charges of child molestation against Andrius Usas, businessman and former aide of former Parliament Chairman Viktoras Muntianas of the Civic Democracy Party, which during the last parliamentary election in 2008 received no seats in the parliament. Usas has recently left the party. He was a close friend of Kedys' former girlfriend, Laimute Stankunaite, who is the mother of Kedys' daughter. Since Nov. 2008, the daughter lived in the home of Kedys' parents.
On his Web site and during numerous TV interviews, Kedys was accusing Furmanavicius, Usas, and a man only named as Aidas, of participating in pedophiliac orgies with his daughter and the then seven-year-old daughter of Stankunaite's sister Naruseviciene. He was accusing Stankunaite and Naruseviciene of receiving money from pedophiles in exchange for sex with their daughters. "I will crush those pedophiles like cockroaches," Kedys said during one of his TV interviews last summer, obviously frustrated with the slow work of the prosecutors regarding his accusations against Usas, Furmanavicius, Stankunaite and Naruseviciene.
Now Facebook has two fan pages dedicated to Kedys. One Facebook page has 19,000 members, and the other has 4,000 members. They are glorifying him as a vigilante fighting for justice and the protection of children. His fans are searching for Aidas, whom Kedys could not identify.
On Oct. 16, in front of the presidential palace in Vilnius, some 30 persons protested against the prosecutors' slow work in this alleged pedophilia case. Their posters were stating the following: "Shame on pedophiles!", "Ms. President, it is disgusting to live in a country which is ruled by pedophiles!" Laimute Kediene, mother of Kedys, was among the demonstrators. The protesters demanded the resignation of Kaunas prosecutor Betingis, Prosecutor General Algimantas Valantinas, Prosecutor General's Deputy Gintaras Jasaitis, and Children's Rights Ombudsman Rimante Salaseviciute.
The echo of the Kedys case went far beyond the borders of Lithuania. An especially large interest was shown by the Polish media. During a morning show on TVN TV of Poland, 97 percent of incoming calls from viewers said that they support Kedys. Poland's daily Fakt published an article which is titled "Let's give asylum to a Lithuanian hero!" and the caption "This man should be free!" was written under Kedys' photo in that daily. In the article, these statements were supported with words of sympathy for Kedys by Polish Parliament Deputy Chairman Stefan Niesolowski and Polish MP Zbigniew Wassermann.
Lithuanian politicians are less emotional. One of the reasons is due to the fact that Petras Grazulis, MP of the Order and Justice faction and the most vocal of Lithuanian parliament's fighters against pedophilia, was publicly condemned by Kedys' mother. Speaking on Lietuvos Rytas TV, she said that her son received no support from Grazulis though both men had a meeting. She also said that Grazulis has business ties with Usas.
Stasys Sedbaras, chairman of the parliament's Law and Order Committee, says that he has serious doubts about Kedys' accusations against killed judge Furmanavicius. The name of the judge appeared in Kedys' accusations only several months after accusations against Usas. Sedbaras speculates that Kedys, being in poor psychological shape, could be influenced by other people who could have their own interests which were not related to the alleged pedophilia case.
Several years ago, Furmanavicius sentenced Enrikas Daktaras, son of the alleged boss of the most notorious gang in Kaunas, for synthetic drugs trafficking to the U.S. Now a similar case is pending in a court in Lithuania, and the well-known son was expected to be a witness there, but he could not be found.
The Kedys' story also has some intriguing sidelines. Prosecutors are questioning Deividas Narusevicius, 33, former husband of the murdered Naruseviciene. Narusevicius arrived from Germany, where he now lives, to participate in the funeral of his former wife and to take custody of their daughter. Prosecutors have suspicions that the man was involved in a fraud scheme, according to media speculation. Narusevicius allegedly would make some deals with owners of cars in Western Europe about "stealing" their cars. The owners would receive money from him as well as from their insurance company. The cars would be slightly rebuilt and then sold. Narusevicius has been sentenced eight times for stealing cars.
Kedys himself could have some contacts with the criminal world. According to LNK TV, at least on one occasion he contacted Rolandas Michalskis, alias Micha, and his wife, who helped him find a phone contact with a host of the LNK TV show on crime issues. Recently Parliament Chairman Arunas Valinskas was forced to leave his post because of media reports about his contacts with Micha, who allegedly had contacts with the Kaunas criminals.
Kedys' former girlfriend, as well as ten other people who are related to the alleged pedophilia case, is now guarded by armed police. She is banned from giving any interviews because of the fear that she could be the next target of the killers. It is unknown where she lives now. The media speculates that prosecutors are making decisions about filing charges on her for allowing the sexual exploitation of her daughter.
According to Jasaitis, the prosecutor general's deputy, Kedys, who in the past was involved in the fur trade in Russia and Europe as well as other business activities, possibly conducted his business without paying taxes, which means it is unknown as to how long his financial condition can keep him going.
The alleged pedophilia and killings are shaking the Lithuanian legal system. "Even if for five years Lithuania has been a member of the European Union and NATO and it should be a legal and democratic republic, truth and justice are still imprisoned in the deep netherworld of Soviet thinking and corruption," Kedys wrote on his Web site, which has been shut down. On Oct. 19, President Dalia Grybauskaite met with Prosecutor General Valantinas to discuss the Kedys case. She expressed her dissatisfaction with the too bureaucratic work of the prosecutors in the case.
