The Klaipėda Regional Court sentenced Tatjana Beleckaja and Mindaugas Januitis to 6.5 and 7 years in prison respectively. The case was heard behind closed doors. The sentence was handed down today, April 15, LRT reported.
Both defendants are Lithuanian citizens. Januitis was a member of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union but was expelled from the organisation.
According to investigators, the couple travelled to Minsk in May 2022, where they were recruited through intermediaries by Belarus’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff. Until November 2023, in exchange for money and other rewards, they collected and passed on information about military structures in Lithuania and Latvia.
According to the case materials, the defendants provided information about the Lithuanian armed forces, Lithuania’s voluntary defence system, the Riflemen’s Union and NATO forces in Lithuania. They were also instructed to gather information about representatives of the Belarusian opposition in Lithuania and about Lithuanians who could potentially be recruited.
It is also known that Belarus’s military intelligence wanted to obtain information about preparations for the NATO summit in Vilnius, which took place in 2023, and the security measures for the event.
The information collected and transmitted was not classified, but it was valuable to the armed forces of foreign states in preparing plans for military aggression or other actions directed against Lithuania.
The defendants remained in custody before the trial. The sentence has not yet entered into force and can be appealed.
