BNS news agency has turned to the chairman of the Judicial Council, Gintaras Kryzevicius, acting Prosecutor General Darius Raulusaitis and Special Investigation Service chief Saulius Urbanavicius over massive wiretapping of conversations of the agency's journalists.
This came following information received from prosecutors that the pre-trial investigation into leak of a state secret and abuse involved wiretapping and recording of telephone conversations of BNS former and current employees.
Mass wiretapping of journalists' conversations is a gross violation of freedom of the press and is absolutely unacceptable in a democratic country based on the rule of law.
The procedural coercive measures were disproportional, could have threatened to reveal confidential sources of information and violated the privacy of BNS employees without a valid reason.
A prosecutor of the Organized Crime and Corruption Department at the Prosecutor General's Office notified BNS about the investigation actions on Monday.
The wiretapping was sanctioned by a Vilnius court. The court rulings on the coercive measures are subject to appeals to the Vilnius Regional Court.
Last December, the Vilnius Regional Court rendered invalid decisions in the same investigation to instruct a BNS editor to disclose her source of information and sanction searches of her home and office.
As reported earlier, the Special Investigation Service had searched the BNS editor's home, summonned six BNS employees to interrogation and seized a few computers.