Parliament refuses to expel Adamsons

  • 2000-09-14
  • TBT staff
RIGA - The day the Latvian Parliament voted against lifting MP Janis Adamsons' immunity, former Justice Minister Valdis Birkavs vowed to sue him for slander, asking 100,000 lats ($164,000) in damages. The next day former Prime Minister Andris Skele said he would do the same, while Adamsons reported attempts at bribery.

On Sept. 7, the Latvian Parliament voted on the prosecutor's office's request to lift Adamsons' immunity, so that criminal charges could be brought against him for abuse of power. The request was turned down 47 votes to 41, and five abstentions.

Adamsons, chairman of a parliamentary commission investigating the pedophilia case, made a public statement implicating Birkavs and Skele in the case.

Further investigation into Adamsons' accusations led to nothing, according to the prosecutor's office.

Birkavs maintains that Adamsons made the allegations knowing that they were false, but that the lawsuit will give him a chance to prove he acted in good faith. "I would like to say that (Adamsons) is honest, but since he came to Latvia he has been constantly accompanied by lies and fantasies," Birkavs said.

The parliamentary investigation commission had never set out to catch the true offenders, said Birkavs. When studying documents in the criminal case opened over Adamsons' statements, he had seen testimonies by young people, who admitted they had been made to finger Birkavs.

The former justice minister wondered who was behind this scandal and what motives drove Adamsons to question people that had nothing to do with it into the scandal. "I do not think Adamsons was the director of the show. He was only a loudspeaker," Birkavs said.

According to Birkavs, the authors of the pedophilia scandal have achieved their goal. "The state has been put to shame, the government overthrown and several politicians were destroyed either in part or in full," he said.

Birkavs had trouble understanding why Adamsons would want to avoid a trial as it would provide him with an opportunity to prove that he was right.

On Sept. 8, Adamsons reported that several MPs had told him of attempts to buy their votes for the sum of 12,000 lats. He would not disclose their names as it was up to the individuals to go public about the propositions. He only expressed satisfaction that no MP had accepted the bribe.

MP Dzintars Rasnacs, who was a member of the parliamentary commission chaired by Adamsons, told BNS that he himself had not received any offers. He had heard, though, that 5,000 to 10,000 lats had been offered for a vote in support of the immunity motion.

"Gossip is gossip... unless someone is caught offering bribes," Rasnacs said.

Skele, who resigned as prime minister in part because of Adamsons' allegations, has said he also intends to sue Adamsons for damages, since the outcome of the vote means that the criminal case against Adamsons will be closed, leaving only this way of getting justice. Skele did not specify the amount he would claim from Adamsons.

Prosecutor General Janis Maizitis sees the outcome of the vote as indicative of the crisis between the legislative and judicial branches, but does not take it as a vote of no-confidence for himself or the Prosecutor General's Office.