The appellate court also rejected the complaint of the convicted Giedrius Valatkevičius.
As BNS wrote, last November, after re-examining the criminal case, the Vilnius District Court found former judge of the Kaunas branch of the Regional Administrative Court G. Čekanauskas guilty of influence peddling and fined him 19,400 euros.
The same court had acquitted G. Čekanauskas last January, as it did not find the elements of a crime, but later the Lithuanian Court of Appeal annulled this verdict due to the judge’s bias and sent the case for re-examination.
The appellate court then stated that the first instance court was biased because the chairman of the panel, judge Gintaras Dzedulionis, was questioned as a witness in the main judges’ corruption case, from which G. Čekanauskas’s case was separated.
According to the case data, G. Čekanauskas promised to influence his then colleague – a judge of the Kaunas District Court – to make a favorable decision in the criminal case in which Giedrius Valatkevičius was prosecuted.
He planned with his lawyer to deliver a bribe of 15,000 euros so that the judge handling the case would be influenced through acquaintances.
After re-examining the case, the Vilnius District Court increased G. Valatkevičius’s imprisonment for attempting to influence the judge – sentencing him to six years and three months in prison instead of two years.
The court’s decision was appealed to the Lithuanian Court of Appeal.
In this case, transferred to the court in April 2021, G. Čekanauskas was accused of accepting a bribe at the request of lawyer Drąsutis Zagreckas to influence the judge handling G. Valatkevičius’s case so that no real imprisonment would be imposed.
The accusation against G. Čekanauskas is based on the testimony of his former classmate, cooperating witness D. Zagreckas.
This case was separated from a large-scale corruption case involving former high-ranking judges, lawyers, and other individuals committing corrupt crimes. The trial of the major case in the appellate court has concluded, and the verdict was announced these days.
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