AMBASSADOR CLOUD MEETS WITH NEW CHIEF OF SPECIAL

UNCLAS VILNIUS 000789 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS TALLINN FOR LEGATT E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ASEC PGOV PREL PINR LH SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR CLOUD MEETS WITH NEW CHIEF OF SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS SERVICE ¶1. (U) Summary. On October 24 Ambassador met with newly commissioned Director of Special Investigations Service (STT) Zymantas Pacevicius (pat-SEV-i-chuss) to discuss the challenge of fighting corruption in Lithuania and his desire for further training opportunities. End Summary. ¶2. (U) Pacevicius stressed that STT would like to continue to receive U.S. training and equipment so its analysts and technical personnel can keep up with the suspects they investigate. He said this is most important because STT is not good at training young analysts, and criminals in Lithuania have been good at adjusting to surveillance technology that STT utilizes. ¶3. (SBU) Pacevicius also mentioned his desire to have one or more of the STT technical staff travel to the United States to train with the FBI on technical surveillance. (Note: The idea of an exchange or TDY assignment has long been a topic of interest for STT, as mentioned times in the past by former Director Povilas Malakauskas. Previous requests of this nature were for observation of ongoing FBI public corruption investigations. Operational security and sensitivity of such investigations have previously prevented such an exchange.) ¶4. (U) The Ambassador expressed his interest in the progress of STT in working with the Lithuanian government to develop good ethical habits to avoid corrupt practices. Pacevicius said collaborative relations have been very good on this, but discussion regarding funding of political parties in Lithuania has been a heated topic. He elaborated that STT as yet is not certain to what extent it would be involved in decisions regarding party funding, as there is the potential for STT to become involved in the politics - a clear conflict to the STT mission. ¶5. (SBU) While Pacevicius was not overly critical of the role that Lithuanian prosecutors and the judiciary have played in major corruption cases, he did say that the Lithuanian media's role is extraordinary, ranging from ineptitude to complicity in high-profile cases. He agreed that in a democratic state the media must play a positive role in exposing and fighting corruption. The "commissioning" of stories was discussed, and Pacevicius mentioned that it is not always so clear and obvious that the buying of stories is taking place, due to the fact that for advertisements and paid "promotional" articles only coded notification in small print at the end of articles is required by law. ¶6. (U) Bio Note: Pacevicius began his law enforcement career in the early 1990's, and served in key positions in the Criminal Police during the period of widespread violent crime in the mid-1990's. He was promoted to Chief Inspector of the Extraordinary Crime Investigation Bureau of the Lithuanian Criminal Police in 1995, and later served as Commissar of the Violent Crime Investigation Division at the Organized Crime Investigation Service. He began working for STT in 1997 as chief of the operational activities subunit. In 1999, he became deputy Director of the service. CLOUD