On Wednesday, July 19, all of the main Lithuanian television channels on their evening news reported the Vilnius municipality sent a request to the Office of Prosecutor General seeking to revoke the license the Vilnius municipality issued 10 years ago for embattled Lithuanian MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis, accused and apparently guilty of making numerous anti-Semitic statements on facebook and in the Lithuanian press, for construction of his home on what is considered a fragile wetlands area and aquifer on the Neris River.
Lithuanian state television LRT and independent channels LNK and TV3 reported the city reviewed the permitting process and found it hadn’t met current standards and didn’t meet the allegedly same standards 10 years ago.
Žemaitaitis was laconic in comments made by telephone video from his automobile to the press, saying the permits had already been investigated three times by both the city and the prosecutor, and had been found in order. He said if the city wanted to revoke the permit and force the removal of his home, they would have to pay compensation adjusted for inflation, and that the legal process would probably take ten years or more. He also indicated he was currently on vacation. The Vilnius municipality administration director responsible for the current scandal enveloping the MP, Adomas Bužinskas, told multiple media outlets that was, that the municipality would be found at least partially liable for issuing the permit to begin with, and thus would bear financial responsibility.
The plot of land in question, according to media reports, is immediately adjacent to another plot of land allegedly zoned as an aquifer and wetlands zone as well, with no human habitation allowed, owned by former Vilnius mayor Juozas Imbrasas. Both Imbrasas and Žemaitaitis belonged to the former Law and Order Party founded by impeached Lithuanian president Rolandas Paksas and served on the city council at the same time when the construction permits were issued. Adomas Bužinskas belongs to a rival party called the Freedom Party which is part of the ruling Government coalition with the Lithuanian Conservative Party. The previous mayor of Vilnius, Remigijus Šimašius, was a member of this Freedom party as well.
The speaker of the Lithuanian parliament and the ruling coalition issued a statement last week demanding the MP apologize for his anti-Semitic remarks before the NATO meeting in Vilnius on July 11 or face impeachment and removal from parliament. Speaker Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen then said an apology wasn’t enough and he would be removed in any case. Žemaitaitis responded by daring them to try. Opposition parties refused to sign on to the statement calling for Žemaitaitis’s removal from parliament. The next session of the parliament meets in early fall.
In May Žemaitaitis condemned on facebook Israel’s destruction of a Palestinian school built with funding from the EU in the occupied West Bank. He quickly moved to a series of apologetics for anti-Semitic sentiment world-wide. Lithuanian political elites branded him a servant of the Kremlin intent on ruining the then-upcoming NATO meeting in Vilnius by painting Lithuania as an anti-Semitic country.
Full story in Lithuanian here.