Islamist terrorism suspect Kusaite re-arrested

  • 2011-04-27
  • By Rokas M. Tracevskis

VILNIUS - On April 22, a Vilnius court decided to put Egle Kusaite, 22, back in jail for three months of pre-trial imprisonment at the request of Prosecutor Mindaugas Duda. He said that she has been influencing other suspects in the alleged terrorism case and that such influence can be harmful for the investigation. Duda also stated that Kusaite terrorizes Prosecutor Justas Laucius (earlier, Laucius was in charge of Kusaite’s case in the pre-trial period), who allegedly received an SMS from Kusaite with a death threat.

On Oct. 24, 2009, Kusaite, a convert to Islam and a Klaipeda dweller, was arrested by the Lithuanian State Security Department on suspicions that she, as a future suicide bomber, was ready to travel to Russia’s capital Moscow, where her Chechen Internet friends lived and who allegedly were giving instructions to her. After a strangely long time, on Jan. 19, 2010, two Chechens, Apti Magmadov, 31, and his sister Aishat Magmadova, 22, were arrested in the Moscow region by the Russian Federal Security Service on suspicion of recruiting Kusaite for the mission of suicide bomber in some Russian army base in Chechnya.  On Aug. 2, 2010, the Vilnius Court of Appeals decided to release Kusaite from prison, stating that she did not commit a real crime and can wait for the final verdict in her case while free. A year ago, several employees of the Lithuanian State Security Department lost their jobs due to too close cooperation with the Russian Federal Security Service in Kusaite’s case.

During the closed to the public court hearings of April 22, Kusaite was asked to leave the courtroom due to her allegedly unprintable language interrupting statements of Elena Kosevaja, who is a witness in the case. Kusaite gave an improvised briefing to journalists, stating that Kosevaja is an agent of the Lithuanian State Security Department who pretended to be a Muslim convert and tried to inspire Kusaite into Islamist terrorism. “It was she who dreamed about suicide bombing,” said Kusaite, who denies that she ever had some terrorist intentions, stating that agents of the Lithuanian State Security Department who pretended to be Muslim converts were inspiring her for terrorism with the intention to create a case of a successful anti-terrorist operation for the department.

“Kusaite communicates with Magmadovs via a third person [the mother of Magmadovs] and also makes an impact on Justas Laucius, who was in charge of her case earlier,” Prosecutor Duda said after Kusaite was re-arrested in the Vilnius court.
“There were no grounds to arrest her. She already was jailed illegally for nine months. It was not forbidden for her to communicate with Magmadov’s mother, while [Prosecutor] Laucius sent that SMS to his phone himself,” Virginija Kusiene, Kusaite’s mother, said.