In the oral proceedings of the Riga Regional Court, on Thursday at 14:00, the criminal case of Jura Juraš (K), a former member of the Saeima and an official of the Office for the Prevention and Combating of Corruption, accused of disclosing state secrets, will begin.
In the oral proceedings of the Riga Regional Court, on Thursday at 14:00, the criminal case of Jura Juraš (K), a former member of the Saeima and an official of the Office for the Prevention and Combating of Corruption, accused of disclosing state secrets, will begin.
Previously, the case was planned to be considered in a written process on March 23, but the way of considering the case was changed. The case will be heard in closed court sessions.
Previously, the Supreme Court (AT) annulled the judgment of the Riga Regional Court in full and referred the case for a new examination.
Prosecutor Māris Urbāns filed a protest against the regional court’s verdict. He asked to completely annul the judgment of the Riga Regional Court and send the case for a new consideration.
Previously, the Riga Vidzeme suburb court also acquitted Juraš and indicated that the circumstances mentioned in the indictment were not confirmed in the court investigation. The court did not establish that Juras had disclosed a state secret and caused damage to the internal or external security of the state.
The court of first instance also did not establish that the information indicated in Juraš’s report of October 1, 2015 and disclosed in the interview to the magazine “Ir” was obtained during the operational activity and verified in the operational development case.
The court of first instance recognized that Juras, when providing the journalist with information about a case of corruption that he had not obtained through operational activity, had the right to do so, moreover, the said information corresponds to the provisions of the Law “On State Secrets”, namely information on the level of crime and its statistics, cases of corruption and illegal actions of officials cannot be a state secret. All doubts in the case were assessed in favor of the accused.
In the summer of 2016, Juraš publicly announced that he had been offered a bribe so that the criminal trial of the former manager of “Latvijas Dzelzceļa” (LDz) Uģ Magoņas and Estonian businessman Oļegs Osinovskis would be reclassified from bribery to influence peddling, for which the law provides for a much milder punishment.
Juraš claimed that even before the public announcement, he informed the KNAB, then headed by Jaroslav Streļčenok, and the prosecutor’s office, then headed by Eric Kalnmeier, about the attempt to bribe him. Juras claimed that after not following the reaction and investigation by these authorities, he decided to inform the public about the incident through the media. At that time, the information appeared on Latvian Television and in the magazine “Ir”.
A criminal trial was started for Juraš’s actions in disclosing this information publicly. The criminal trial was investigated by the State Security Service, which asked the prosecutor’s office to file an indictment against Juras. However, the prosecutor Aivis Zalužinskis concluded that there is no legal basis for calling Juras to criminal responsibility, but the started criminal proceedings can be terminated due to the lack of elements of a criminal offense.
However, later, the Chief Prosecutor of the Investigation Department of Particularly Important Cases, Modris Adlers, on his own initiative as a senior prosecutor, canceled the decision of Zalužinski as unfounded.
The case was transferred back to the State Security Service, and the chief prosecutor had indicated specific investigative steps that still needed to be taken.
In January 2019, the majority of Saeima deputies supported the extradition of the then deputy Juras for criminal prosecution.
