I won the case in the European Court of Human Rights against the Lithuanian Government

On 19 December, in a case Narbutas v. Lithuania, the European Court of Human Rights has published the judgment (82 pages in English) concluding that Lithuanian  Government has breached my human rights under 4 separate articles of European Convention of Human Rights, stating that:

1. My arrest was unlawful;
2. Public comments by the STT and prosecutor in mass media have breached my right of privacy;
3. Prohibition for me to comment on pre-trial investigation was unlawful and has breached my right to protect reputation;
4. My assets were frozen unlawfully.

The court has awarded me with 26 000 EUR in non-pecuniary damages, which shall be paid by Lithuanian Government within 3 months.

After 3 years of public prosecution, I have been fully acquitted by the court!

Thank you for your tremendous support and motivation to endure through close to 30 court sessions and analysis of close to 10 000 pages of case material. Without your support I would not been able to defend myself.

On 11 May. 2023, Vilnius district court has dismissed accusations of the prosecutor on all grounds. The prosecutor has already declared in the media that he will appeal the judgement.  This means several more years of legal costs for me, but that is a story for another day.

Below I am posting summary of key facts determined by the court (you can find exact quotes in my posts on Facebook and LinkedIn):

1. My actions were not harmful, on the contrary - beneficial to the country as they have allowed to significantly increase volume of COVID-19 testing in Lithuania.
2. The fact that I have acted as an intermediary was known to all relevant persons (public servants) that have participated in the process.
3. The remuneration received by me under commission agency agreement is lawful.
4. Other COVID-19 PCR tests procured by the Lithuanian Government during first wave of COVID-19 were procured at substantially higher price, my involvement has led to Lithuania saving millions of euros.
5. I was not acting as a public servant, I was not acting as representative of Lithuanian Government, I have not been involved as independent expert to the Government or Ministry of Health or the National Public Health Laboratory.
6. My activity at the time, i.e. using my international network to find suppliers of relevant medicinal products, analysing the suitable products, proposing the suppliers and their products to the relevant public authorities, acting as an intermediary in the process between the suppliers and public authorities, was lawful.
7. During the pre-trial investigation witnesses were pressured to give false answers by asking them leading questions.

Thank you for all your emotional and financial support throughout these two challenging years!

As long as there will be supporters, I will have energy to fight back and be acquitted.

Your support towards legal fees of over 44 000 EUR have allowed me to dispute the initial allegations and to lift various restrictions – together with my legal team we have filed over 40 appeals, that subsequently led to the investigation being terminated.

Legal defence funds were also used to file the petition to European Court of Human Rights for violation of 10 articles of European Convention of Human Rights. So, there is a pending case Narbutas v Lithuania, where the Government will be standing trial for abusing their authority against civil activist.

Without your donations, the investigation would have lasted way longer! 

Below is a recap of facts why I need legal funds:

1. All my personal bank accounts and assets remain frozen. Any income that I earn is frozen at a moment it reaches my bank account. This means I can’t use my current funds to pay legal fees as I am not even able to use my funds to pay the rent, utilities, food, taxes, and healthcare.
2. My case file included almost 10 000 pages, most of them not even related to accusation. All the documents have to be assessed by my attorney and examined in court.
3. There are dozens of witnesses and dozens of court sessions in the first instance court that will require hundreds of hours to prepare for and hundreds of hours to attend court sessions.
4. A separate litigation process is progressing in European Court of Human Rights where all Lithuanian evidence have to be translated to English and vice versa.
5. All the financial donations go directly to the account of my attorney, that is the only way for me to pay the legal fees.

Below is the background to the story I posted back in 2020

 I'm Šarūnas Narbutas, 33 years old, living in Vilnius (Lithuania) with my wife. I have been diagnosed with a rare type of blood cancer (CML) for 15 years now and am on active therapy still. For the past decade I have been leading cancer patient organisations at national, European and global level, I have launched / advocated for dozens of policy / legal initiatives at national level and in front of international organisations, receiving multiple national and international awards for my advocacy roles. I earned my income as a lawyer, consultant, and entrepreneur. 

Since COVID-19 outbreak in March of 2020, I have been vocally sceptic about Lithuanian government decisions relating to COVID-19 and the provision of healthcare services to cancer patients, publicly encouraging government to take a different course of action and learn from the mistakes. There were hundreds of my comments on national media (online portals, TV news, radio shows) and in the international press. In June of 2020 I have also been invited to address Lithuanian Parliament in the plenary session after which a resolution supporting my arguments has been passed by the Parliament. In October 2020, Parliament elections were held in Lithuania and government has changed. In Lithuania, for years I have been perceived as civil activist, who during the pandemic era was also gaining substantial public support and was increasingly vocal about detrimental governmental decisions.

Innocent until proven guilty?

On July 21 of 2020, completely by surprise I was arrested at my home without a lawful court order solely on an alleged suspicion of influencing a government decision to procure COVID-19 tests. Those suspicions have been dropped in October of 2021.

In a series of highly unusual circumstances the Lithuanian Special Investigation Service (STT) detained me for two days, seizing my personal belongings (telephone, computers) and have frozen all my assets and all bank accounts without a court order. They proceeded to parade me before the national press without giving me any recourse to rebut the alleged suspicions. In addition, they even took the unprecedented measure of publishing a press release in English, something STT does not do regularly in which they attempted to link this investigation to my work as a cancer patient advocate which is completely false. These measures have done immeasurable damage to my reputation nationally and internationally. I was also prohibited to comment anything publicly about on-going investigation, while STT has initiated dozens of press articles, smearing me. One sided information has created a public perception that I am already guilty of crime, even those allegations have been dropped (in silence). 

In a normally functioning democracy, the right to innocence until proven guilty is a core pillar of a fair trial. However, the press releases and official comments from the Special Investigation Service (STT), Prosecutor's General Office followed by a media frenzy for months have voided my presumption of innocence and breached my right to privacy. Furthermore, in his interview back in August 2020 even the President of the Republic of Lithuania has referred to my activities as "maraudering", further politicising the legal proceedings.

My role

In March of 2020, in my private capacity I acted as a commercial agent between the Lithuanian government and an international company in the procurement of desperately needed COVID-19 PCR tests. These tests were delivered within less than a week, have been cheaper than tests that arrived months later, have been compatible to be used in all public laboratories and have allowed the government to increase testing of Lithuanian population by tenfold and becoming a leading country globally for conducting COVID-19 PCR tests during the first wave. While Lithuanian taxpayers have saved up to 2 million Euros from such procurement, for my role in the process I am facing criminal proceedings, with a sanction of imprisonment from 2 to 8 years because I have received a payment from the seller (Spanish private company) for my services as a commercial agent. None of this has been disputed in the investigation, none of this is illegal in any European Union country.

All my personal assets have been frozen for 1,5 years now and I have no way to access my personal funds. Such remedies are breaching EU regulation prohibiting freezing of funds used for legal aid, access to healthcare services, payment of taxes. This is why I have launched this crowdfunding, asking for your help to contribute towards the legal fees in what will be a lengthy and costly process in my fight for a fair trial under the presumption of innocence.

Most of my days during past year were spent drafting appeals to unjustified arrests and undue proceedings. For example, I was not allowed to visit the hospital where I was being treated for my cancer condition. I was also facing new restrictions whenever I dared to publicly question the rationality of such criminal proceedings. There were dozens of articles and news report by Lithuanian media, spanning over a year, further smearing my reputation, and preventing me from acting in any capacity in national organisations and policy area.

In February 2021 I have filed the appeal to European Court of Human Rights on violation of 10 articles of European Convention of Human Rights and am waiting for a court hearing (this process will take several more years). All my bank accounts and assets remain frozen, and it makes it impossible to fund my legal defense. Therefore, all funds received from this campaign is used solely to cover my legal fees and are deposited directly in the account of my attorney.

I am also in discussion with several investigative journalists and film directors to cover my politized case at-length in order to bring to light these abusive practices used by Lithuanian enforcement agencies and politicians similar to depicted in “House of Cards”, including Heads of State - from the President of Lithuania, former Prime Minister, former Ministers, current Government Ministers, current Heads of Parliamentary Committees and had impact even to foreign policy, including China banning goods export to Lithuania.

Please spread the word

With your help and support I do hope to make it through these life-changing proceedings that are impacting my relatives even more than they affect me. By sharing this campaign with others, you will stand for the presumption of innocence and against the brute force of enforcement agencies, abusing the process to silence civil activists. Please take a moment to share it on Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, email or by word of mouth. My example is a proof that Lithuanian enforcement authorities are targeting civil activists and are abusing their powers by declining my Constitutional rights to a fair trial, to a presumption of innocence, to a legal defense and pay no respect to private life or private property.

Thank you

Thank you for your support and goodwill. And for not staying silent.