The volunteers who helped the migrants did not commit the crime: the prosecutor’s office closed the investigation
There is no crime
Pakistanis who spent several days in the winter forest were admitted to Lithuania on December 22, following a favorable ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.
All these days, the migrants were interacted with volunteers from the “Border Group”, who brought warm food to the Pakistani people who were freezing, transporting warm food every day. After applying the temporary protection measures in Strasbourg, the volunteers themselves invited the border guards to Dzūkija.
The State Security Service soon announced that it had launched an inquiry into the smuggling of people across the state border.
“The detection of this crime shows, among other things, that it was hidden from law enforcement about migrants who crossed the border from Belarus in the Varėna district and their whereabouts,” the border guards said at the time.
Representatives of the SBGS at that time did not hesitate to criticize the volunteers of the “Border Group” who help migrants, their ways of working, and said that their goals cast doubt and discredit the ideas of volunteering.
The volunteers themselves rejected the criticism and claimed only those who provided humanitarian aid and acted in accordance with the law. “Sienos grupė” emphasized that when border guards report migrants, they are usually simply expelled from Lithuania and did not allow assistance.
Representative of the Prosecutor’s Office Tautvilė Merkevičiūtė 15min informed that the investigation had been terminated after it was established that no crime or misdemeanor had been committed.
The volunteers only provided assistance
According to her, the volunteers did not organize the trips of the Pakistanis, did not control their actions. Volunteers interviewed as special witnesses knew that the migrants had crossed the border illegally, but did not take any active covert action and did not receive any compensation.
“It has been established that special witnesses have been actively communicating with migrant support regarding the arrival of food, clothing, tents, sleep and other means of subsistence, and for recourse to the European Court of Human Rights to apply for interim measures for aliens.” 15min in the sentence given.
Representatives of the Border Group themselves told the prosecutor’s office, who said they had not committed any criminal activities, transported or concealed Pakistanis only to provide them with humanitarian assistance to enable them to survive in the cold weather.
The four migrants who crossed the border from Belarus were not prosecuted either, as they did so with the aim of seeking asylum, and their actions are seen as a matter of urgency.
Almost 10 thousand. inverted
This is the second similar solution needed in the study on assistance to migrants who have entered Lithuania illegally. An investigation into aid to five Afghans who had been granted ECtHR protection was also suspended in December.
At that time, the prosecutor’s office also relied on arguments about the necessity and the humanitarian aid provided to the migrants by the residents of one homestead in the Ignalina district.
Gabrielė Navickaitė / 15min photo / Five Afghans who were not allowed to be expelled from the territory of Lithuania by the ECtHR (Ignalina district)
In total, during the crisis of illegal migration from Belarus that has lasted for more than a year, six interim court rulings have been handed down in Strasbourg.
All of them were accepted after the border guards acquired the right to return migrants to Lithuania and return them to Belarus last August. By then, during the first seven months of 2021, more than 4.2 thousand people had entered Lithuania. migrants.
From August to the end of April, border guards to Lithuania did not allow more than 9.5 thousand. migrants. True, some of the people in the line for this statistic may have been turned over more than once.