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Lithuania to Sue Russia
// The Su-27 case
Lithuanian authorities admitted on Friday that the crash of Russian Su-27 was not a provocation. Yet, Vilnius is still reluctant to hand over to Moscow Valery Troyanov, the pilot of the crashed fighter, and is drawing up a civil suit against the Russian military.
The commission probing into the crash of the Russian Su-27 in Lithuania has no proof to uphold the provocation theory, the Lithuanian Defense Minister Gediminas Kirkilas told the press on Friday after the close-door session of the parliamentary commission on foreign affairs and security. “The provocation theory can be ruled out almost for sure,” Kirkilas said.
Afterwards, the minister set out for Balatonas hotel where the pilot Valery Troyanov with his wife, who had come to join him, is kept under house arrest. The minister had expressed to the couple his “basic human sympathy on the situation”. Kirkilas said the pilot would return home as soon as the investigation on the crash was over and the country’s prosecutors admitted that he had not violated safety regulations of international flights.
The Lithuanian Prosecutor General Office is hardly going to detain the Russian pilot for long. Gintaras Jasaitis, Deputy Prosecutor General, said that the Troyanov case was most likely to be closed, and he would be released. Now the pilot’s future depends on the conclusions of NATO experts who are to decipher the black box of Su-27. If it is established that the crash was caused by the pilot’s deliberate actions, he will have to stay in Lithuania for an indefinite period of time. Should the reverse be proven, Major Troyanov will return home.
If the latter is the case, there may be two options, according to Deputy Prosecutor General Jasaitis. The case on the reparation of damages will be resolved either by the country’s Civil Code, or by intergovernmental talks. Vilnius believes that the Russian Defense Ministry must be the defendant in the case as the owner of the fighter. The Lithuanian Prosecutor General is currently filing the information to fix the extent of the civil suit which will include all expenses, Mr. Jasaitis says. Lithuania will demand that Russia pay for the services of fire brigades, search groups and the military patrolling the scene of the Su-27’s crash. The prosecutors, however, do not hold much hope that the Russian party will cover the expenses. “Most likely, these claims will not be taken into consideration since they have to be based on precise information,” Gintaras Jasaitis had to admit.
Valery Troyanov still avoids talking to the press. He stays under armed guard in a hotel room for ˆ100 per night and speaks only to the Russian embassy employees and members of the Russian Defense Ministry’s commission based in Lithuania.
Vladimir Vodo, Vilnius
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 24, 2005
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