Vaskevics sentenced

RIGA - The long-time State Revenue Service officer and now suspended Finance Ministry official Vladimirs Vaskevics on Oct. 21 was sentenced to two years in prison by the Riga Ziemelu District Court for repeatedly including false data in his income declaration, reports LETA. Vaskevics was convicted under the Criminal Law’s Section 219, Part 2: intentionally setting out false information in a declaration of income, property or transactions, or other declaration of a financial nature prescribed by law.

The court acquitted Vaskevics on another three counts, including laundering of the proceeds from crime and unlawful participation in property transactions. Vaskevics was not arrested in the courtroom.
The full court ruling will be released on Nov. 4, and Vaskevics will have the right to appeal the ruling.
The criminal case was submitted to the court in the summer of 2009 by Prosecutor Ivars Krauze. The prosecutor said the court was provided with compelling evidence, and that materials in the criminal case made it clear that Vaskevics had repeatedly provided false data in his declaration of income in an attempt to conceal his actual properties.

According to the charges against Vaskevics, he did not declare part of his actual income, accumulated in the accounts of the offshore company Financial Europ Group LLC. Vaskevics used credit cards, registered in the name of his father Pjotrs Vaskevics, for various purchases, withdrawing money from these accounts from 2002 to 2007 in amounts exceeding 20 minimum monthly wages.

Vaskevics previously declined to comment on the charges, referring to his attorney Ainars Platacis, who in turn called the charges “ridiculous.” Platacis said that Vaskevics used his father’s credit cards to buy gifts for his daughters, which were later presented to them by Vaskevics’ father, or the grandfather of Vaskevics’ daughters.

Clearly in a case of the lawyer not standing by his client, Platacis himself has now been missing for one-and-a-half years.