Lithuania Calls My Accusations Opinion. It Calls Fridman’s a Crime

Lithuania’s Genocide Centre linked my Holocaust research to the Criminal Code in 2018, says it never sought a legal assessment, and now calls my accusations “personal subjective opinion.” Lithuania’s prosecutors call Fridman’s accusations against a partisan hero a crime. The state owes an explanation of the difference.

On October 20, Lithuania’s Genocide and Resistance Research Centre (LGGRTC) answered a question it had left open for eight years. In 2018 it told the public that my research on Jonas Noreika accused honored Lithuanians of crimes possibly in breach of the Constitution and the Criminal Code. Had it ever asked anyone empowered to enforce the Criminal Code to look? In letter 55R-1096, the answer was no. The Centre “pasinaudojo savo teise nesikreipti į teisėsaugos institucijas” — it used its right not to approach law enforcement — about what it now calls “tik Jūsų asmeninės subjektyvios nuomonės”: only my personal, subjective opinions.

On October 21 the Prosecutor General’s Office answered from the other side. Rimvydas Valentukevičius, chief prosecutor of its Criminal Prosecution Department, wrote that after a check of the prosecution service’s information systems, “Generalinė prokuratūra neturi Jūsų prašyme nurodytos informacijos.” The Office holds none of the information my request described: a possible Centre request for a pre-trial investigation of me.

Artur Fridman is expected back before the Vilnius City District Court on October 26 in Case No. 02-2-00512-24. The prosecution there treats one man’s accusations against an honored dead Lithuanian as crimes. Fridman is innocent. The law presumes it, no court has found otherwise, and the prosecution against him is illegitimate. I am not publishing the indictment; it belongs to the proceedings and to his counsel.

What the Centre now calls opinion

The 2018 statement was not private correspondence. The Centre posted its answers to my Noreika research on its own website, presenting my accusations against Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis, Bishop Vincentas Borisevičius, Telšiai clergy and others as possibly unlawful. Its October 20 letter confirms that the position “skelbiama viešai Centro interneto svetainėje” — is published on the Centre’s website — and declines to repeat it. I described the 2018 warning and the October 20 admission separately.

The letter adds three statements. The Centre “kategoriškai nesutinka,” categorically disagrees, with my views. It explains its decision not to approach law enforcement as a way to avoid the burden of correspondence it says I have sent for more than fifteen years. And it says no law gives it “teisė ir (ar) pareiga aiškinti,” the right or duty to interpret, Lithuanian legislation. It holds no document, it says, showing that it ever asked law enforcement, another Lithuanian institution or a court for “Jūsų veiksmų teisinio įvertinimo,” a legal assessment of my actions.

Workload does not decide whether conduct is criminal. If the Centre believed in 2018 that my accusations might be crimes, it kept that belief from every authority able to test it. If it did not believe it, it published a criminal insinuation under state letterhead without a basis it was prepared to defend. Either way, the state body that read the Criminal Code against me in public now says interpreting the law lies outside its competence, and files the accusations under opinion.

What prosecutors call a crime

According to LRT’s report of the trial’s opening in March, Fridman is accused over a May 9, 2024 Facebook post in which he called the postwar partisans “forest bandits,” said they took part in the genocide of the Jews, and called partisan commander Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas a “pseudo-hero” who collaborated with the KGB. Prosecutor Kristina Minko told the court he posted “turėdamas tikslą paniekinti kovotojus už Lietuvos laisvę,” with the aim of disparaging fighters for Lithuania’s freedom. The charges are under Article 170² §1 and Article 313 §2 of the Criminal Code. The second punishes publicly spreading false fabrications about a deceased person capable of bringing the dead into contempt.

The legal provisions are not the same. The Centre’s 2018 statement pointed at the Constitution and the Criminal Code; Fridman faces two specific charges in a criminal court. I do not claim the alleged offenses are identical, and Fridman’s post contains statements that have nothing to do with my research. The comparison lies in what the state objected to. In both disputes, historical accusations challenged the reputation of figures honored in Lithuania. The periods, allegations, and applicable criminal provisions differ. When I did it, a state institution called it opinion and declined to involve law enforcement. When Fridman did it, the prosecution called it a fabrication made with intent to disparage. These are decisions by two different institutions: a research centre’s choice not to complain, and a prosecution service’s choice to charge on someone else’s complaint. Neither is a court’s finding, and the Centre has no say over what prosecutors charge. The question is whether they reflect one legal standard applied consistently, or a state that treats the same kind of historical accusation differently depending on who makes it.

LRT also reports how Fridman’s case began: a television presenter, Algis Ramanauskas, reported his posts to law enforcement. Fridman’s case did not need a state complainant. Mine had one available, and it chose not to act.

The standard prosecutors applied to the Centre

The prosecution service has faced this question before, with the parties reversed. On July 24, 2018, through my counsel, I asked the Vilnius Regional Prosecutor’s Office to open a pre-trial investigation under Article 170² against the Centre and its then Director General, Teresė Birutė Burauskaitė, over the Centre’s Noreika findings. The prosecutor refused on August 17, 2018. A renewed complaint of September 26, 2018 was refused on November 12 as repetitive. A third complaint, on the Centre’s claim that U.S. authorities had rehabilitated Brazaitis, was refused on December 2, 2019. My inventory indexes the three; the decisions themselves are linked above. Each was a threshold decision not to investigate. None adjudicated history, and I do not treat them as vindicating my account any more than they vindicate the Centre’s.

They do record the outcome when the alleged distortion of the war years came from a state institution: no investigation. Fridman’s alleged distortion of the postwar years came from a private Jewish citizen, and it produced a trial. Different speech can justify different outcomes. A prosecution service that declined to investigate the state’s own historical claims should be required to show, in law and evidence, which differences justify trying Fridman.

Why the Centre never referred me

That is a question about prosecutorial selection, and the record does not prove unlawful selective prosecution. It also leaves open why the Centre’s public suggestion never became a referral. The Centre gives one reason: the volume of my letters, and my “subjective opinion.” Other explanations are possible. None appears in any document I hold.

Lack of jurisdiction is not an obvious one. I am a Lithuanian citizen, and the Centre’s 2018 statement concerned research I submitted in Lithuania and the Centre published in Lithuania. Enforcement is a different matter. A criminal case against someone living in California is harder to pursue than one against someone living in Vilnius, as Fridman does.

Visibility is another. I am also an American citizen. A criminal complaint by a state institution against an American over Holocaust research would have drawn attention abroad that a case against a resident of Vilnius does not. Whether that weighed on anyone at the Centre is a question, not a finding. It is a fair question, because the reason the Centre did give has nothing to do with whether my speech was lawful.

The Centre’s word in a criminal court

The Centre is not remote from Fridman’s trial. LRT reported that the court intended to question a Centre historian, Rytas Narvydas, at its next session. Nothing in the record I hold shows that the Centre initiated the prosecution; the record points to a private complaint. The admission below does not show selective prosecution. It shows why the Centre’s historical assertions must be tested before a court relies on them. On October 19, in letter 55R-1093, the Centre told me its records contain “nėra duomenų, leidžiančių tiksliai nustatyti, kokiu pagrindu” — no data allowing it to establish on what basis — it wrote in 2020 that a German court had “išteisino,” acquitted, Šiauliai camp commandant Hermann Schleef. A Centre statement shows what the Centre asserted. Whether it is true depends on the German court file, the Lithuanian archives and scholarship outside the Centre. A court hearing a Centre witness is entitled to ask for those sources.

October 26

Two state institutions have now answered in writing. The Centre says it never sought a legal assessment of the criminal suggestion it published against me, and calls my accusations opinion. The Prosecutor General’s Office reports finding no corresponding information in its systems.

Lithuania’s Genocide Centre has told me in writing that my accusations against its honored dead are opinion. Lithuania’s prosecutors tell a Vilnius court that Fridman’s accusation against one of them is a crime. Lithuania has not explained the difference. It should do so before a court is asked to convict him.