The court restricted the freedom of Grafas Liutkevičius for a year for spitting on Rabinus street.
The Vilnius City District Court, having examined the statement of the prosecutor of the Vilnius District Prosecutor’s Office regarding the completion of the process by a court criminal order, found the capital city resident Grafas Liutkevičius (born in 1972) guilty of incitement against a group of people because of their Jewish nationality and religion (under Article 170, parts 1 and 2 of the Criminal Code) and public order violation (under Article 284 of the Criminal Code).
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The court sentenced the man found guilty of these crimes to restriction of liberty for 12 months, during which period G. Liutkevičius is required to stay at his place of residence from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., start working or register with the Employment Service, work 80 hours free of charge in social service institutions that care for elderly or other people in need of assistance, and participate in a behavior correction program.
The court also imposed a criminal penalty on G. Liutkevičius – confiscating his mobile phone, the means used to commit the crime. The Vilnius resident found guilty will also have to compensate the victims for non-material damage suffered.
Based on the evidence collected during the pre-trial investigation, the court found that in July of this year, G. Liutkevičius, in a public place in Vilnius, behaving aggressively and insolently, maliciously mocking, without reason, approached three temporarily visiting persons of Jewish nationality in Lithuania, teachers of Judaism religion – rabbis, filming with his phone at the time, insulted, mocked, and incited hatred against them because of their Jewish nationality and Judaism religion by his words and actions (spitting on them).
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With these actions, G. Liutkevičius demonstrated disrespect for others or the environment and disturbed public peace or order.
G. Liutkevičius was also found guilty of publicly sharing this recorded video with hate speech several times on his Facebook social network account by posting a challenge that incited hatred against people because of their Jewish nationality and Judaism religion, and also publicly posted an additional video attempting to justify his actions of hatred against persons of Jewish nationality and their religion.
The pre-trial investigation was led by a prosecutor of the Vilnius District Prosecutor’s Office, and the investigation was conducted by officers of the Vilnius County Chief Police Commissariat.
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