Russia authorities probing cases of criminal conduct into Lithuania judges

Russian investigators said Wednesday they had opened a criminal case into judges in Lithuania after the country convicted dozens of Russians involved in a 1991 Soviet crackdown. The Russian Investigative Committee said in a statement that it initiated the investigation against four Lithuanian judges for "deliberately delivering an unjust verdict".

Last month, Lithuania sentenced former Soviet defence minister Dmitry Yazov, now 94, in absentia to 10 years in prison over his role in Moscow's January 1991 suppression of the Lithuanian independence movement. The crackdown killed 14 civilians and wounded 700.

Sixty-six other defendants who were senior officials in the military, Communist Party and KGB received sentences from four to 14 years. Russia's Investigative Committee said the Lithuanian courts had unlawfully revived a case which had already been investigated.

Its statement also made a claim that a "third party participated in the conflict" in 1991 but did not clarify who that could be. Most of the convicts are Russian citizens while several hold Belarusian and Ukrainian passports.

Russia and Belarus have refused to extradite suspects and Moscow also rejected a Lithuanian request to question ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The January 13, 1991 assault on key buildings shielded by tens of thousands of peaceful independence supporters was part of failed Kremlin efforts to bring Lithuania to heel after its March 1990 secession from the Soviet Union.