Witch hunting

Lithuanian spy case recalls Soviet-era practices

When Lithuanian police and counterintelligence agents came knocking at the door of a villa in an affluent neighborhood of the capital Vilnius they had an inkling they were dealing with one of the most unusual cases in the history of VSD, the Baltic country's domestic security service. The property worth more than one €1 million ($1.13 million) was one of the leads in an espionage hunt that involved former diplomat and MP Algirdas Paleckis, scion of one of the country's most famous — and controversial — political dynasties.

Paleckis' apparent mistake was that he fully paid back the mortgage on a house too quickly which attracted the attention of the Lithuanian authorities and led to his arrest. Paleckis claimed it was a gift from his relatives. However, his activities as leader of the Socialist People's Front, a fringe left-wing organization that opposes Lithuania's NATO membership and often mimics the Kremlin's propaganda line, only deepened the suspicions.

In a country of less than 3 million people, where everyone knows everyone, the Paleckis' family name is well-known and highly symbolic. Algirdas is the grandson of Justas Paleckis who, in 1940, signed a letter asking the Soviet leadership under Joseph Stalin to admit Lithuania into "the brotherly family of Soviet peoples." In 1990, Algirdas' father, Justas Vincas, turned his back on his own father's legacy. As a newly elected member of the Lithuanian parliament he became one of the signatories of the act which restored Lithuania's independence.