[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
POLITICALLY-MOTIVATED (IN)JUSTICE? THE
EXTRADITION CASE OF JUDGE VENCKIENE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
__________
Printed for the use of the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
[CSCE 115-2-6]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via www.csce.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
32-258 PDF WASHINGTON : 2019
COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
HOUSE SENATE
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi,
Co-Chairman Chairman
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas CORY GARDNER, Colorado
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee MARCO RUBIO, Florida
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas TOM UDALL, New Mexico
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
Department of State
Department of Commerce
Department of Defense
[ii]
POLITICALLY-MOTIVATED (IN)JUSTICE? THE
EXTRADITION CASE OF JUDGE VENCKIENE
----------
September 27, 2018
COMMISSIONERS
Page
Hon. Randy Hultgren, Commissioner, Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe............................. 1
WITNESSES
Karolis Venckus, Son of Judge Neringa Venckiene.................. 3
Professor Mary G. Leary, Catholic University of America, Columbus
School of Law.................................................. 5
Abbe Jolles, Esq., International Human Rights Litigator,
AJ Global Legal................................................ 7
Dr. Vytautas Matulevicius, Member of Lithuanian
Parliament, Way of Courage Party (2012-2016)................... 9
APPENDIX
Prepared statement of Hon. Randy Hultgren........................ 17
Prepared statement of Karolis Venckus............................ 19
Prepared statement of Mary G. Leary.............................. 21
Prepared statement of Abbe Jolles, Esq........................... 24
Prepared statement of Dr. Vytautas Matulevicius.................. 26
Statement submitted by the Embassy of Lithuania.................. 29
POLITICALLY-MOTIVATED (IN)JUSTICE? THE
EXTRADITION CASE OF JUDGE VENCKIENE
----------
September 27, 2018
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Washington, DC
The hearing was held at 2:07 p.m. in Room 2261, Rayburn
House Office Building, Washington, DC, Hon. Randy Hultgren,
Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe,
presiding.
Commissioners present: Hon. Randy Hultgren, Commissioner,
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Witnesses present: Karolis Venckus, Son of Judge Neringa
Venckiene; Professor Mary G. Leary, Catholic University of
America, Columbus School of Law; Abbe Jolles, Esq.,
International Human Rights Litigator, AJ Global Legal; and Dr.
Vytautas Matulevicius, Member of Lithuanian Parliament, Way of
Courage Party (2012-2016).
HON. RANDY HULTGREN, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Hultgren. Good afternoon. We're going to go ahead and
start the commission hearing. It's a busy day here in
Washington, but this is important. So good afternoon. Thank you
all for joining us for this very timely Helsinki Commission
hearing on possible political motivation behind Lithuania's
request that the United States extradite Judge Neringa
Venckiene.
In 2008, Judge Venckiene's 4-year-old niece Deimante
revealed to her family that her mother's friends, two of whom
were government officials, were sexually molesting her in her
mother's presence and at a local hotel where the mother allowed
her to be taken alone with these men. Later investigation
showed that the mother had unexplained income and an apartment
from one of the government officials named by the girl. Judge
Venckiene and Deimante's father had to plead with the police
for a year before they finally began an investigation. However,
the investigation was later ruled to be negligent.
Ten members of law enforcement, including the prosecutor
general, resigned or were fired over the case. Despite a
Vilnius district court ruling that there was enough evidence to
indict her, the mother was never indicted for her possible role
in the sexual exploitation. Instead, a court ordered Deimante
to be returned to her mother while Deimante was the key witness
in an ongoing trial against her abusers. The girl refused to
leave Judge Venckiene's for fear of further molestation.
As you'll see shortly in a video of the events, 200 police
officers came to Judge Venckiene's house and violently took the
screaming child from her arms, giving her to the mother accused
of sex trafficking. The U.S. is poised to extradite Judge
Venckiene because an officer was bruised in the scuffle.
When Judge Venckiene left Lithuania, the prosecutors were
preparing more than 35 other charges against her as well, such
as filing petitions with the court on behalf of Deimante,
talking with the media about the problems in the investigation,
conducting her own investigation, desecrating the national
anthem, holding rallies, and humiliating the court--even
attempting to overthrow the government.
Lithuania is a friend and ally of the United States.
Lithuania is an exemplary country and regional leader in many
ways. But even friends and allies can make mistakes. Even
friends and allies can have a weak area in their judicial
system. Instead of zealously pursuing the people who sexually
exploited Judge Venckiene's niece, the Lithuanian Government
and judicial system have seemed to have targeted Judge
Venckiene.
Over the last 6 years, Lithuania's judiciary has prosecuted
for false statements and other alleged crimes the child's
grandparents, a medical professional who came forward with
evidence, journalists reporting on the case in a way that was
critical of the investigation, neighbors, people who attended
rallies on behalf of the child, and many others who came
forward with evidence or opposed the violent removal of the
child from Judge Venckiene's care. I fear that Judge Venckiene
will not get a fair trial in Lithuania, especially since the
then chairman of the Supreme Court of Lithuania on national
television said that Judge Venckiene is ``an abscess in the
political system''--and I quote--and, another quote, ``the
trouble of the whole state,'' end quote--effectively
prejudicing her case nationwide. Moreover, many of the critical
defendants, witnesses, and complainants are dead or have
disappeared. The child's father, or Judge Venckiene's brother;
two of the accused child molesters; and two key witnesses have
all died under mysterious or violent circumstances since the
case began. And Lithuania's legal and judiciary committees
concluded that the investigation into the child's sexual
exploitation was negligent and that the negligence compromised
the case against the public officials.
It's unclear that the litany of missteps in this child
trafficking case can ever be corrected in Lithuania at this
point. What is clear is that Judge Venckiene infuriated many
people in power with her anti-corruption crusade and that the
charges against her appear to be politically motivated. The
U.S. Secretary of State could simply refuse to extradite Judge
Venckiene on the grounds of political motivation, but as yet
has not done so.
Judge Venckiene came to the U.S. 5 years ago seeking
political asylum, but her case has still not been heard.
Consequently, Representative Smith and I have introduced a
private bill, H.R. 6257, which would allow Judge Venckiene to
be excluded from the treaty and to finish her case in the U.S.
courts for political asylum. We believe that she deserves a
chance to make her case in a U.S. court, a chance she has not
received thus far.
We also want to make sure that--hang on one second.
[Off-side conversation.]
Mr. Hultgren. We had invited the government of Lithuania to
participate today. The government declined, but did provide
written testimony which we've posted on the website.
Here to represent Judge Venckiene's case is her son,
Karolis Venckus. So we will move to introduction, to him first.
Karolis is the son of Judge Venckiene. He was only 8 years
old when his cousin came forward with her allegations of
molestation and watched as the family struggled to seek justice
for her. At 12 years old he fled Lithuania together with his
mother, Judge Venckiene, and applied for asylum in the United
States. Lithuania is not seeking his extradition. He's
currently attending college in the United States. And we'll
first recognize you for your testimony. Thank you for being
here.
KAROLIS VENCKUS, SON OF JUDGE NERINGA VENCKIENE
Mr. Venckus. Thank you, Congressman Hultgren. My mom,
Neringa Venckiene, is a former judge and a Parliament member of
Lithuania. She is currently detained in Chicago's Federal
prison by the request of the Lithuanian Government. She faces
nearly 40 charges in our home country.
The case started in 2008, when my cousin, who was 4 years
old at the time, testified that while visiting her biological
mother she had been abused by three men who are associates of
her mother. She identified the men as Andrius Usas, a
businessman and advisor to the Speaker of Parliament; Judge
Jonas Furmanacius, and a third individual only known as Aidas
[ph].
My uncle, the girl's father, spent nearly a year trying to
bring the case to court. He sent our more than 200 requests
asking for investigation to his daughter's claims about her
sexual exploitation. He spoke to national media and pleaded for
help from local politicians. And although the court-ordered
psychiatrist and psychologist determined the girl's testimony
as true and not a result of fantasy or fabrication, the case
seemed to be going nowhere.
Could you play the first video, please?
[A video presentation is shown.]
Mr. Venckus. In October 2009, the accused judge and another
woman involved in the abuse were shot and killed. My cousin's
father disappeared that same day. My uncle became the prime
suspect, and right away the prosecutors announced on national
media that there was DNA evidence on the murder weapon
confirming that my uncle committed the crime. Only much later
the prosecutors had to admit that they had made a mistake and
no DNA was found. A few months later, my uncle was also found
dead. His death was determined to be an accident, a finding
that many Lithuanians had trouble believing.
After my uncle's disappearance in October 2009, government
officials seized my cousin from the kindergarten and placed her
in a psychiatric hospital. My mom was given custody of my
cousin, and they were finally able to come home. The case was
finally started and the Lithuanian Parliament concluded that
the prosecutors stalled the case and neglected to investigate
my cousin's claims. Many of the officials involved lost their
jobs, including the prosecutor general.
My mom, who was a judge at that time, started to publicly
speak about the bribery and corruption in the Lithuanian
courts. Journalists that supported my mom were often fined or
their shows even prohibited to air. In May 2010, the court
announced that my cousin has to live with her biological mother
despite the fact that the pedophilia case has not been
concluded yet and the fact that the girl was testifying against
her mother for facilitating the molestation. My cousin refused
to go, and thousands of Lithuanians surrounded the house and
would not let the police pass and seize her.
In June of that year, the alleged pedophile Usas was also
found dead. According to the government, he also died of
natural causes. He was found laying in a few-inch-deep puddle
of water near his four-wheeler with his helmet near him.
My cousin developed PTSD from the attempts to return her to
her mother, and her doctors issued an order against further
traumatizing attempts. Despite that fact, on May 17, 2012,
around 240 police officers came to our house and used force
against my cousin, violated my mother's judicial immunity by
injuring her, and carried my cousin away screaming.
Please play the second video.
[A video presentation is shown.]
Mr. Venckus. I haven't seen my cousin ever since. After
that day there were massive protests and demonstrations in
Lithuania and abroad.
My mother resigned from the bench and founded a new
political party created to fight against corruption and
pedophilia which won seven seats in the Parliament while having
almost zero funding. She promised to reform the judicial and
political systems in Lithuania, with stricter punishments for
corruption, rape, and pedophilia.
Soon after the election, the prosecutor general requested
the Parliament to remove my mother's legal immunity. The
liberals, the conservatives, and the socialists all announced
that they will be voting in favor of removing my mother's legal
immunity, even before any evidence was presented and even
before the ruling of the parliamentary commission that was
supposed to investigate the matter. It became clear that my
mother was an inconvenient obstacle to the corrupt legal and
political systems and it was not safe for her in Lithuania
anymore.
So, in 2013, my mother and I fled to the United States and
asked for political asylum.
But the Lithuanian Government is seeking my mom's
extradition before her political asylum case takes place, and
the current extradition treaty does not allow my mom to present
any counter-
evidence to the Lithuanian Government's claims or to
demonstrate the political nature of the case.
The number of crimes that my mom is accused of grew to 39.
My grandparents, our aunts and uncles, our neighbors, my mom's
supporters, and many of her party members are all facing
charges in Lithuania, and some of them have already been
sentenced.
My mother will never receive a fair trial in Lithuania
because Gintaras Kryzevicius, the chairman of the Supreme Court
of Lithuania, has called my mom ``an abscess'' in the judicial
and the political systems, and ``the trouble of the whole
state.'' And the journalists, the prosecutors, and the
politicians have been developing that narrative for years now.
How can she receive a fair trial in Lithuania when the highest
court officials are making public statements like this?
There have been multiple uninvestigated deaths associated
with the pedophilia case in Lithuania, and my mom and our
family have also received multiple threats. And during one of
my mom's campaign rallies, her car was tampered with.
The government of Lithuania is biased toward my mother, and
is neither capable of guaranteeing a fair trial for her, nor
can it guarantee her safety there.
Thank you for your time.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Karolis, for being here. Thank you
for your testimony.
Next, I will introduce Professor Mary G. Leary. Professor
Leary is a professor of law at the Catholic University of
America. Professor Leary's scholarship examines the
intersection of criminal law, constitutional criminal
procedure, technology, and contemporary victimization. She
focuses on the exploitation and abuse of women, children, and
vulnerable peoples. She is recognized as an expert in these
areas of criminal law, victimization, exploitation, human
trafficking, missing persons, technology, and the Fourth
Amendment.
Professor Leary.
PROFESSOR MARY G. LEARY, CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA,
COLUMBUS SCHOOL OF LAW
Ms. Leary. Thank you very much, Representative Hultgren,
and thank you for convening this hearing. I'm grateful for the
opportunity to engage in a dialog with you regarding the
subject of this hearing, which touches on an area of my
scholarship--child sexual exploitation.
I want to begin my comments by noting that I participate in
this dialog without a side in this debate. But as a legal
researcher in the field of child sexual exploitation, I hope to
assist the commission in putting some of this case into a
context and offer some reference points in the field of child
sex trafficking.
Since the year 2000, the United States has been a leader in
the international community in developing laws and policy
regarding human trafficking. With the congressional passing of
the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000 and its
subsequent reauthorizations in 2003, 2005, 2008, 2013, and
2015, Congress properly cast a comprehensive definition of
human trafficking generally and sex trafficking specifically.
In so doing, Congress ensured that these definitions would
reflect our ongoing and improved understanding of the realities
of human trafficking by encompassing trafficking in all its
forms. Similarly, these definitions seek to capture the many
different types of traffickers that victims encounter and
correctly label them as human traffickers.
I don't need to tell the commission but, for the record,
the TVPA defines sex trafficking to include the recruitment,
harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing,
or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex
act. Crucial to our discussion today, however, is the legal
definition of commercial sex act.
A commercial sex act is not only a situation in which a
purchaser buys a human being in cash from a third-party
trafficker, colloquially referred to as a pimp here in the
United States. But, rather, the definition of commercial sex
act Congress sought to encompass the many forms of sex
trafficking that occur, including what has been referred to as
interfamilial sex trafficking.
A commercial sex act includes any sex act on the account of
which, quote, ``anything of value is given or received by any
person.'' Therefore, the laws recognized from early on the
commercial nature necessary for an act of sexual exploitation
to be a sex trafficking simply requires that exchange of
anything of value between any two people.
Congress further demonstrated this comprehensive approach
to sex trafficking of minors by including in its criminal
offense explicitly an offender who, quote, ``knowingly benefits
financially or by receiving anything of value by participating
in a sex trafficking venture, as long as they know the person
is a minor who will be engaged in the commercial sex act.''
This provision captures the criminality of a parent who
engages in an interfamilial child sex trafficking occurrence.
Thus, the American law has recognized the prevalence of
interfamilial sex trafficking and seeks to specifically combat
it. Of course, the United States is not alone. Most other
nations have joined the protocol to prevent, suppress, and
punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children.
That protocol, also known as the Palermo Protocol, defines
trafficking equally as broadly, and I want to focus on the
specific language where it defines trafficking to include the
giving or receiving of payment or benefits to achieve the
consent of a person having control over another person for the
purpose of exploitation.
So, again, not only does the Palermo Protocol explicitly
identify this kind of exchange, it also describes exploitation,
at a minimum, the exploitation of prostitution or other forms
of sexual exploitation. Therefore, under American law, when any
person receives a benefit or something of value in exchange for
providing another for a sex act, that is sex trafficking and,
internationally, we have the same situation.
In the case before the commission today, assertions have
been made that the child in this case was not only sexually
abused but that the child's mother was, quote, ``complicit in
allowing the abuse.'' In the course of the commission's review
of this case, should it encounter evidence of this compliance
being in exchange of something of value or that the victim's
mother received a benefit for her consent to sexually abuse her
daughter, such information would suggest a case involving child
sex trafficking.
Arguably, that could transform this case into one in which
a guardian--in this case, the judge--simply did not want to
hand her ward over to a sex trafficker.
As the commission considers this case in the context of
extradition and asylum, it may also wish to consider the
possible implications of child sex trafficking should it
encounter such evidence of the exchange.
While child sexual abuse in all its forms is an assault on
the dignity of a child, the matter of child sex trafficking is
one of import, not only to the United States but globally.
Given the leadership of the United States in combating
trafficking in persons and Congress' specific role in crafting
a comprehensive trafficking legislation and ratifying the
Palermo Protocol, instances of child sex trafficking have great
import in American policy.
If evidence of a benefit-based compliance emerges in the
commission's review of this case, that evidence should be
closely examined and, therefore, as the commission considers
this complex case, it should examine it through the lens of
child sex trafficking and--should the investigation indicate--a
commercial sex act.
I thank you for the time and I look forward to answering
any questions.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Professor Leary.
Next, we'll introduce Abbe Jolles. Abbe Jolles is a
Washington, DC-based international human rights litigator. She
provides representation worldwide, including conflict zones.
She handles individual, corporate, criminal, and civil matters
involving unlawful property confiscation, incarceration or risk
of incarceration, and other human rights violations including
immigration and global migration.
Abbe was the first American woman admitted to the
International Criminal Court and the first American admitted to
the African Court on Human and People's Rights. She achieved a
landmark result at the International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda.
Ms. Jolles, thank you.
ABBE JOLLES, ESQ., INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LITIGATOR, AJ
GLOBAL LEGAL
Ms. Jolles. Thank you very much, Representative Hultgren,
for the invitation to speak to you today about the extradition
of Judge Neringa Venckiene.
My name is Abbe Jolles. I am an international human rights
litigator working globally. I was the first American admitted
to the International Criminal Court and I achieved a landmark
decision at the United Nation's Rwanda Tribunal. I am a
founding member of Hear Their Cries, working to end immunity
for sexual assaults committed by staff members of international
organizations, including the United Nations. I have tried cases
for more than 30 years and I have handled hundreds of assault
cases, both felonies and misdemeanors.
I am going to focus on three areas: First, what constitutes
an extraditable offense under Article 2 of the extradition
treaty between the United States and Lithuania; second, the
extradition treaty's Article 16 limit on addition of new
charges should Judge Venckiene be returned--this is a technical
but an unenforceable limit; and, finally, and very important,
the proviso that extradition must be refused when the charges
are politically motivated under Article 4. It must be refused.
It's not discretionary.
In 2015, Lithuania demanded extradition of Judge Venckiene
based on an alleged May 2012 assault on a federal officer.
Judge Venckiene fled to the United States in April 2013 and
immediately filed a request for political asylum, which is
still pending. Between May--the May 2012 alleged assault and
her April 2013 flight to the United States, Judge Venckiene was
not arrested. At the time of the extradition demand by
Lithuania, Judge Venckiene had been in the United States for 2
\1/2\ years.
On May 17th, 2012, as you've heard from Karolis, 240
federal officers stormed Judge Venckiene's home to remove her
7-year-old niece. It is alleged that Judge Venckiene and the
little girl resisted and that Judge Venckiene punched a federal
officer at that time.
In the United States, when a federal officer is feloniously
assaulted, the perpetrator is arrested immediately and jailed
without bond. Here, it strains credulity to believe that there
was a serious assault when the perpetrator remained free for an
entire year and then was able to flee the country. Moreover, no
extradition request was made for 2 \1/2\ years after Judge
Venckiene's arrival in the United States.
In the United States, these types of assault charges are
often disposed of by way of plea bargains. Fair Trial
International reports that there is no plea bargaining process
in Lithuania. This further taints the process and presents a
clear and present danger to Judge Venckiene should she be
returned to Lithuania.
The legal filings in this matter indicate that many charges
have been added and subtracted over 6 years. At this juncture,
there is one so-called extraditable charge and three related
charges which wouldn't be extraditable on their own.
Technically, pursuant to Article 16, Lithuania is not permitted
to add charges once Judge Venckiene returns. Practically, this
is unenforceable.
This is a matter of concern here because Lithuania's
original extradition request contained 14 charges, 10 of which
were not extraditable offenses. In addition, during the last 6
years, 39 different charges were alleged and added and
subtracted, and most of those charges can't be the basis of
extradition.
There is much evidence that the extradition demand for
Judge Venckiene is politically motivated. When charges are
politically motivated, the Secretary of State must refuse
extradition. An army of 240 federal officers converging on a
private home to take custody of one little girl is a powerful
indicator of political motivation.
There are many other indications of political motivation,
including the nature of all but one of the 39 charges discussed
over the past 6 years. Charges such as contempt for the memory
of the deceased, unauthorized disclosure about a person's
private life, abuse of the rights and duties of parents, and
complicity in a criminal act unspecified are a few of the
manufactured, vague, politically motivated charges.
Press reports indicate that sending Judge Venckiene back to
Lithuania is a likely death sentence and that there is no
chance of a fair trial. It is notable that Judge Venckiene's
political party, the Way of Courage, seeks reforms, as Karolis
indicated, in the justice system. But one of the things that
they're looking to do is implement jury trials.
It is also notable that in 2017 the State Department issued
a report indicating that Lithuanian prisons do not meet
international standards. Also in 2017 Malta rejected an
extradition request from Lithuania on this basis. Ireland has
refused to extradite to Lithuania based on substandard
Lithuanian prison conditions as well. The Irish court ruled
that the accused was likely to be held in inhuman and degrading
conditions if extradited. Denmark has refused extradition to
Lithuania, finding there was a risk the accused would be
tortured if returned to face charges.
In conclusion, it is likely that Judge Venckiene will
suffer irreparable harm if she is returned to Lithuania. I am
here today in the hopes that I can help convince you to do
everything in your power to keep Judge Venckiene in the United
States so that her 2013 asylum application, which has an
excellent chance of success, can be decided.
Thank you so much for your time.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Ms. Jolles. I appreciate your
testimony.
Our final witness is Dr. Vytautas Matulevicius. Dr.
Matulevicius was elected to Lithuanian Parliament along with
Judge Venckiene--excuse me--as a candidate of the new Way of
Courage Party, which was led, again, by Judge Venckiene. He
served for 4 years but did not run again after Judge Venckiene
asked for political asylum in the United States.
Dr. Matulevicius has a Ph.D. in humanitarian studies and is
a journalist by trade. For many years he had his own television
show called ``The Coast,'' which was one of the top television
shows in Lithuania. For his professional work, he was awarded
twice as a Person of the Year and Best Journalist in popular
Lithuanian awards called a Who is Who in Lithuania.
Doctor, thank you for being here today.
[Note: Mr. Matulevicius' remarks are made through an
interpreter.]
DR. VYTAUTAS MATULEVICIUS, MEMBER OF LITHUANIAN PARLIAMENT, WAY
OF COURAGE PARTY, 2012-2016
Dr. Matulevicius. I would like to thank Mr. Hultgren and
all the members of the Helsinki Commission. It would be much
more pleasant to discuss other topics in this environment.
I believe that in the history of any country there are
cases that reflect--mirror the key, essential problems of the
country. The mirror of that kind became the case of Judge
Venckiene and the judiciary persecution of the judge. Until
recently, she was one of the most popular Lithuanian
politicians, the leader of the parliamentary party. She became
a symbol of the fight against the court corruption and probably
the future Lithuanian president.
However, she is today a prisoner in Chicago and she can be
deported to Lithuania, where dozens of accusations and
uncertain future are awaiting her. What happened that such a
respectable and successful woman who worked as a judge for 13
years suddenly became an internationally sought-for criminal?
What really happened is something that I wouldn't wish on
my enemy. One day, her brother's daughter began to tell and
visually demonstrate how her mother's friend and two more men
were using her body, and it's only understandable that Neringa
Venckiene, being a judge, started defending her niece.
The scale of such a fight can be judged from the fact that,
in several years, Neringa Venckiene and her brother wrote over
200 complaints and statements to law enforcement and other
state authorities. Unfortunately, none of the alleged
pedophiles ended up on a defendant's bench.
One of the three men, who worked as a judge, was shot by
someone. The other was not identified. The third one, who was
the only one against whom the charges of molestation were
brought up, on the eve of the court hearing, fell from a four-
wheel motorcycle and drowned in a knee-high puddle of water.
Unfortunately, he was the assistant to the speaker of
Lithuanian Parliament.
The girl's father was found dead as well. Out of
frustration, he, due to the inaction of law enforcement,
videotaped his daughter's testimony and began distributing it
to journalists, and it was extremely dangerous. When the main
parties to the proceedings were murdered or died in suspicious
circumstances, the court tried the deceased defendant.
According to the court, there was no pedophilia since the
allegations supposedly were deliberately made up by the girl's
father, who wanted to harm his ex-wife.
This is the short plot of the case. In my conviction, that
exhibits what can happen to people who are determined to fight
against influential pedophiles who have important connections.
I would like also to mention that the cases of pedophilia
have tough time in other Western countries that have old
democratic traditions. As an example, I can give the cases in
Britain, where a movie star was taking advantage and abusing
children. Unfortunately, all of that came to the surface only
after many, many years--many, many years later when many of
those powerful have been facing the judgment on the other side
of life.
A similar situation occurred in Belgium, where the
investigation of the famous pedophile case also encountered
obstacles that have not yet been seen. The justice system
started moving from the point of death of--only when hundreds
of thousands of citizens came to the streets protesting the
inactivity of the law enforcement, then the country's
parliament decided, finally, to step in.
In Lithuania, the situation is even more grave, since,
until now, we didn't eliminate and refuse the flaws and corrupt
practices of the communist period of our lives, and the case of
Venckiene itself can be regarded as a typical recurrence of the
Soviet legal system, when an individual addressing the crimes
of the powerful is being labeled as a criminal himself. That's
how the KGB treated the dissidents and the people who would
address the crimes and brought danger to the system and comfort
levels.
And it's not only my opinion. One of the former anti-Soviet
fighters, a nun--a Catholic nun, Sister Nijole Sadunaite--
commented on the case of Judge Venckiene, ``This is the same
KGB pattern.''
Maybe it's interesting for you to hear that the nun, Nijole
Sadunaite, is an honorary citizen of a city in Texas. She also
has been awarded by the Republican Party of California a medal
for her long fight for the human rights. That's a lady who
knows what she's saying, and Sister Sadunaite is one of the
most active and persistent defenders of the rights of
Venckiene.
I do understand that the Chicago judge who examined the
extradition case of Judge Venckiene could not know the
specifics of all post-communist countries and, therefore, she
decided that the refugee would have every opportunity to defend
her rights in a Lithuanian court. However, for those of us who
know the beast, the judge's argument has only caused a bitter
smile.
I will touch up on three of the main violations of the
standards of international law that Judge Venckiene would need
to face if she would be deported to Lithuania. First of all,
there would be an imminent danger to her life. I've already
claimed that the pedophilia case in this question took six--the
lives of six people, including those who were killed or died
under suspicious circumstances. One of the leaders of the
prosecutor's office even labeled the case as ``a killer.''
But the protection of the state was appointed not to the
victims who suffered for the actions of pedophiles but to the
mother of the sexually exploited girl who was supposed to be
indicted. She was supposed to be indicted as an accomplice in
this case, based on a court order. The decision of the court
has never been implemented. Therefore, there is a high
probability that no appropriate attention will be given to
Venckiene's safety at this time and anything could happen to
her in the prison cell, as often happens in Lithuanian prisons.
And sending a person to die, unless excluding the war
cases, is prohibited not only by the rules of international
laws but it's also elementary humanitarian principle. Article
10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights claims that
every person has the right to a fair and impartial trial.
If Judge Venckiene will be returned to Lithuania, her case
most probably would be considered by the Supreme Court, whose
chairman, Kryzevicius, publicly named her an abscess in the
judicial system. It's very humiliating labeling and, basically,
what he is saying that if she is back the only verdict she can
expect is guilty, and that's how he restricted her right to a
fair and impartial trial. Although Judge Kryzevicius is now in
a different position within the court system, he is still in a
very influential judicial position--the head of the Supreme
Administrative Court of Lithuania.
And the last item--three--the chairman of the Supreme Court
proceeded even further by labeling Venckiene as an abscess in
the political system as well, and this was almost an open
call--an invitation for the politicians to deal with a common
enemy who constantly criticized both the judicial and the
political authorities.
That's what happened when Ms. Venckiene was elected into
the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania. When Venckiene,
fearing for her own safety, left for the United States, the
Parliament impeached her for not attending the meeting and
expelled her from the Parliament. This was done behind her back
without providing an opportunity to defend herself, and what's
even worse, in the violation with the statutes of the
Parliament, which has the power of law.
I have no doubt that the same principles would be adhered
to if Venckiene would be returned to Lithuania because her fate
would be, again, in the hands of the same conspired politicians
and judges.
Thank you for your attention and for hearing me out, and
I'm here to answer the questions, if you have any.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Doctor. Thank you, each of you.
Also, I'm so glad to be joined by my friend and colleague from
Texas, also a Helsinki Commission member, Congresswoman Jackson
Lee. Thank you so much for being with us.
I just have a few questions, if that's all right, and then
I do apologize--with many things going on today, we'll have to
finish up after a few questions.
But, Karolis, if I could ask you first, if you could just
briefly talk about what's happened to your family and other
supporters of your family who have remained in Lithuania.
Mr. Venckus. Thank you, Congressman.
As we talked about it, my mom is facing dozens of charges.
My grandparents have been trialed multiple times. My mom's
family members--her aunts, her uncles, her cousins--all of them
are facing charges. Basically, everyone we know is facing
charges in Lithuania, and there is enormous pressure on each of
those persons.
Mr. Hultgren. Ms. Jolles, if I could address to you--in
your testimony, you indicate that the Way of Courage Party is
advocating for jury trials, or at least had been, in Lithuania.
Do I understand correctly that Lithuania does not currently
have jury trials and how could this affect Judge Venckiene if
she is extradited?
Ms. Jolles. Well, if--pardon me--thank you for that
question.
If Judge Venckiene is extradited, I think they're just
going to have a very quick kind of a system. They don't have
jury trials and, almost more important, they don't have plea
bargains. So they have something called a penal order and
that's just, as best I can tell, where you plead guilty. You
just plead guilty and you admit it and then you go to jail or
you suffer whatever consequences.
So the way I see it from everything that I've read, if she
goes back, it's going to be a very quick--quickly disposed of.
But it is shocking to me that she committed the crime,
allegedly, in 2012, she sat there--I mean, I understand she ran
for office. She did all these things, and I also understand
that she, allegedly, had immunity.
But that doesn't really matter because if you do something
for which you have immunity, they arrest you and they take your
defenses when you get there. Oh, no, no, you can't do that--I
had immunity--or so, during that. So the fact that they just
let it go and then, suddenly, in 2015, after she had been here
2 \1/2\ years they decided that that was such a serious crime.
Since when do we go extraditing people for these old cases
where they didn't really do anything?
And never would you see that in the United States. If you
get in the way of a Federal officer who's trying to effect an
arrest or a custody situation and you--and you clock him, which
she's alleged to have done--punch him--you're done. They arrest
you immediately. They don't say, go about your business and
then, oh, flee to another country.
Anyway, hope that wasn't too long.
Mr. Hultgren. No. Thank you.
Professor Leary, more specifically, on situations like
this, if a child is testifying against a parent in a
trafficking case, would a court ordinarily order that the child
be returned to the parent before the testimony was complete?
Ms. Leary. Thank you for your question, Representative.
Of course not. That would compromise the child witness. We
would say she would have conflicting allegiances and,
typically, the child would be, at a minimum, with a care-giving
relative, as she was in this case, or, if there was none
available, some sort of foster care system. It is highly
unusual, with a pending investigation, to have a child victim
go live with the alleged perpetrator.
Mr. Hultgren. Thanks, Professor.
Dr. Matulevicius, if I could address a question to you. I
wonder how Judge Venckiene's exit from Lithuania has affected
the Way of Courage Party.
Dr. Matulevicius. It affected it destructively. All of us
knew that it will not end well and there was no way for us to
keep her, and once she left for the United States the whole of
society--there was such a big disappointment for everyone
because any person that ever supported the party or supported
Venckiene has been--tens and tens of people went to courts
because they showed the citizens' duty to the country.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you.
One last question--Karolis, if I can address it to you
because I think this is--it's been addressed by, really, all
the witnesses. But just very specifically, the government of
Lithuania did not seek extradition until 2015. They say that it
was because they did not know where Judge Venckiene was living.
Was your mother hiding? What was she doing in the U.S. during
that time?
Mr. Venckus. Thank you for the question.
The first charges were brought against my mom, including
the assault on the officer, in 2012 while she was still a
judge. Her legal immunity was removed for the first time and
she did not have any legal protections. Then later, she was
elected to the Parliament where she gained those protections
once again. But the Lithuanian law allows the person, if
they're caught in the middle of committing the act, even the
criminal act, even if they're--even if they have legal immunity
they can be arrested on the spot.
Thank you.
Mr. Hultgren. Yes, Doctor.
Dr. Matulevicius. As a member of Parliament I personally
was asking the majority of the Parliament. They took away
diplomatic immunity--[inaudible]. She had to flee to the United
States. Why didn't you demand to send her back? Somebody has
passed away. Why didn't you take her to court? They had
nothing--[inaudible]. They had no evidence, and they were
hoping that if they take time they will collect the evidence.
But with the last--[inaudible]--the party that initiated
her case is now being sued for corruption. And one of the
leaders of the prosecutors of this who handle the pedophilia
cases, he went to--he's employed currently for a big business
that was funding the party. So everything is interconnected,
and it's obviously--obvious corruption.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you. Again, thank you. I've got so many
more questions and this is so upsetting and hard to understand
and disappointing--and I just, again, want to thank all of you
for your time, for being here.
I'm sorry it's such a busy day in Washington. I wish all of
my colleagues could be here. But that's part of our job is to
be able to get information and then share it. And so I will do
my best to let my other colleagues know, to be able to see
these really difficult to see videos that you've shown us--just
horrible--and, again, just want to thank you for your time,
thank you for your courage for being involved in this.
And I think this is so important for us to know about this
and continue to do everything we can to protect the judge, but
then also hope to find answers for this little girl--this
precious little girl--and to find out how she's doing and to
make sure that she is placed somewhere where she knows she can
be safe, finally.
So, again, thank you all. If there is other information
that you have that you want to get to us, please let us know at
the Helsinki Commission. We'll make sure all the members of the
commission have it, but also we'll make sure we get it out to
other colleagues here in Congress.
With that, again, thank you, and we will adjourn this
commission hearing.
[Whereupon, at 3:06 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
----------
Prepared Statement of Hon. Randy Hultgren
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining the Helsinki
Commission this afternoon for a very timely hearing on
``Politically-Motivated (In)Justice? The Extradition Case of
Judge Venckiene.''
The Helsinki Commission monitors and encourages compliance
with the Helsinki Final Act and other OSCE commitments by
strengthening human rights monitoring, defending those
persecuted for acting on their rights and freedoms, and
ensuring that compliance with Helsinki provisions are given due
consideration in U.S. foreign policy.
This is true whether we are examining the records of other
countries, or examining our own.
In this case, I am concerned that the U.S. State
Department--which approved Judge Venckiene's extradition after
Secretary Tillerson left and before Secretary Pompeo was
confirmed--may have overlooked some important factual context
in the case of Judge Venckiene. Judge Venckiene is officially
being extradited for bruising an officer who was taking her
niece from her. However, the context of this charge and the
more than 35 other charges leveled against Judge Venckiene in
Lithuania give rise to concern that the extradition request is
politically motivated.
Under the U.S.-Lithuania extradition treaty, politically
motivated charges should not be honored.Political author,
political party leader, and parliamentarian, Judge Venckiene is
prominent in Lithuania-and worldwide-for her fight against
government corruption in Lithuania. In fact, the then Chief
Justice of Lithuania (Kryzevicius) in 2012 stated on national
television that Judge Venckiene ``is an abscess in the legal
system and an abscess in the political system" and "the trouble
of the whole state.''
The government of Lithuania has repeatedly and prolifically
charged Judge Venckiene with crimes related to Judge
Venckiene's anti-corruption work. Judge Venckiene believed her
young niece's 2008 sexual molestation accusations against two
public officials and sought justice for her niece against what
seemed to be inordinate obstacles. She protected her niece from
being returned to the mother, who the girl accused of being
involved in the molestation. The Lithuanian government ordered
that the girl be returned to the mother in the middle of the
trial--a trial in which the girl was testifying against her
mother. More than 200 police were sent to Judge Venckiene's
house to take the girl.
Judge Venckiene, consistent with a congressional
investigation, believed the Government of Lithuania failed to
properly handle the investigations against the public officials
and published a book about those failures in 2012 entitled, Way
of Courage. ``Way of Courage'' became the name of a new, anti-
corruption political party in Lithuania, which elected Judge
Venckiene to Parliament.
In 2013, Judge Venckiene fled to the United States and
promptly filed an application for political asylum--but, 5
years later, is waiting for her case to be heard. In fact, the
extradition process in the United States does not allow her to
contest or provide counter evidence to any of the charges.
I hope that today's hearing will complete the record, and
the United States will make a decision in this case that is
consistent with American law and principles.
Prepared Statement of Karolis Venckus
My mom Neringa Venckiene is a former judge and a Parliament
member of Lithuania. She's currently detained in Chicago's
Federal Prison by the request of the Lithuanian Government. She
faces nearly 40 charges in our home country.
The case started in 2008, when my cousin, who was 4-years-
old at the time, testified that while visiting her biological
mother, she has been abused by three men, who were associates
of her mother. She identified the men as Andrius Usas, a
businessman and an advisor to the Speaker of the Parliament,
Judge Jonas Furmanacius and a third individual only known as
Aidas. My uncle, the girl's father, spent nearly a year trying
to bring the case to court, he sent out more the 200 requests
asking for an investigation into his daughter's claims about
her sexual exploitation, he spoke to national media, and
pleaded for help from local politicians. And although court-
ordered psychiatrists and psychologists determined the girl's
testimony as true and not a result of fantasy or fabrication,
the case seemed to be going nowhere.
In October 2009, the accused judge and another woman
involved in the abuse were shot and killed, and my cousin's
father disappeared that day. My uncle became the prime suspect.
Right away, the prosecutors announced on national media that
there was DNA evidence on the murder weapon confirming that my
uncle committed the crime. Only much later the prosecutors had
to admit that they have made a mistake and no DNA was found. A
few months later, my uncle was also found dead.
After my uncle's disappearance in October of 2009,
government officials seized my cousin from the kindergarten and
placed her in a psychiatric hospital. My mom was given custody
of my cousin, and they were finally able to come home. The case
was finally started, and it was concluded that the prosecutors
stalled the case and neglected to investigate my cousin's
claims. Many of the officials involved lost their jobs,
including the Prosecutor General.
My mom, who was a judge at the time, started to publicly
speak about the bribery and corruption in the Lithuanian
courts. Journalists that supported my mom were often fined, or
their shows prohibited to air.
In May of 2010, the court announced that my cousin has to
live with her biological mother, despite the fact that the
pedophilia case has not been concluded yet and the fact that
the girl was testifying against her mother for facilitating the
molestation. My cousin refused to go, and thousands of
Lithuanians surrounded the house and would not let the police
pass and seize her. In June of that year, the alleged pedophile
Usas, was also found dead. According to the government, he also
died of ``natural causes''--he was found laying in a few-inch
deep puddle of water near his four-wheeler with his helmet near
him.
My cousin developed PTSD from attempts to return her to her
mother, and her doctors issued an order against further
traumatizing attempts. Despite that fact, on May 17th, 2012,
around 240 police officers came to our house and used force to
carry my cousin away screaming.
I haven't seen my cousin ever since. After that day there
were massive protests and demonstrations in Lithuania and
abroad. My mother resigned from the bench, and founded a new
political party, created to fight against corruption and
pedophilia, which won 7 seats in the Parliament, while having
almost 0 funding. She promised to reform the judicial and
political system in Lithuania, with stricter punishments for
corruption, rape and pedophilia.
Soon after the election, the Prosecutor General requested
the Parliament to remove my mother's legal immunity once again,
but this time with one new allegation. The Liberals, the
Conservatives and the Socialists, all announced that they will
be voting in favor of removing my mother's legal immunity, even
before any evidence was presented and even before the ruling of
the Parliamentary Commission that was supposed to investigate
the matter.
It became clear that my mom was an inconvenient obstacle to
the corrupt legal and political systems, and it was not safe
for her in Lithuania anymore. So, in 2013, my mother and I fled
to United States and asked for political asylum. But the
Lithuanian Government is seeking my mom's extradition before
her political asylum case takes place. And the current
extradition treaty does not allow my mom to present any counter
evidence to the Lithuanian Government's claims, or to
demonstrate the political nature of the case.
The number of crimes that my mom is accused of in Lithuania
grew to 39. My grandparents, my aunts and uncles, our
neighbors, my mom's supporters and many of her party members
are all facing charges in Lithuania, and some of them have
already been sentenced. My mother will never receive a fair
trial in Lithuania, because Gintaras Kryzevicius, the chairman
of the Supreme Court of Lithuania has called my mom ``an
abscess in the judicial and the political system'' and the
``trouble of the whole state'' and the journalists, the
prosecutors, and the politicians have been developing that
narrative for years now. How can she receive a fair trial in
Lithuania, when the highest court officials are making public
statements like this? There have been multiple uninvestigated
deaths associated with the pedophilia case in Lithuania, and my
mom and our family have also received multiple threats. And
during one of my mom's campaign rallies, her car was tampered
with. The Government of Lithuania is biased towards my mother,
and it is neither capable of guaranteeing a fair trial for her,
nor can it guarantee her safety there.
Prepared Statement of Mary Graw Leary
Introduction
Chairman Wicker, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Cardin, and
Ranking Member Hastings, thank you for convening this hearing.
I am grateful for the opportunity to assist you and engage in a
dialog regarding the subject of this hearing, which touches
upon an area of my scholarship: child sexual exploitation. I
want to begin my comments with a candid statement that I
participate in this dialog without a side in this debate. It is
my intent to assist the Commission in putting some of the case
in a context and offer some reference points in the field of
child sex trafficking.
Child Sex Trafficking
As the Commission well knows, 2000 was a watershed year for
the fight against human trafficking. Here in the United States,
Congress embarked on a powerful effort to end human trafficking
with the enactment of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act
(``TVPA'') of 2000. This journey has continued through numerous
amendments and the TVPA's subsequent reauthorizations in 2003,
2005, 2008, 2013, and 2015. Through this Act and its
reauthorizations, Congress properly cast a comprehensive
definition of human trafficking generally and sex trafficking
specifically. In so doing, Congress also ensured that these
definitions reflect our ongoing and improved understanding of
the realities of human trafficking by encompassing trafficking
in all its forms. Similarly, these definitions also seek to
capture the many different types of traffickers victims
encounter.
To that end, the TVPA defines sex trafficking to include
the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision,
obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the
purpose of a commercial sex act. \1\ A commercial sex act is
not only a situation where a purchaser buys a human being in
cash from a third-party trafficker. Rather, in the definition
of a ``commercial sex act,'' Congress sought to encompass the
many forms of sex trafficking that occur, including what has
been referred to as intra-familial sex trafficking. A
commercial sex act includes any sex act on account of which
``anything of value is given or received by any person.'' \2\
Therefore, the law recognized from early on that the commercial
nature necessary for an act of sexual exploitation to be sex
trafficking simply required the exchange of the sex act for
anything of value; and that exchange can be between any two
people, not necessarily only a purchaser and victim of
trafficking. Congress also classified the sex trafficking of a
minor as a ``severe form of trafficking'' and defined it to
include sex trafficking in which the person induced into the
commercial sex act has not yet attained the age of 18. \3\
Congress further demonstrated this comprehensive approach to
sex trafficking of minors by including in the criminal offense
of sex trafficking not only those who knowingly engaged in the
aforementioned acts. \4\ It also explicitly includes a person
who ``knowingly benefits financially or by receiving anything
of value'' from participating in a sex trafficking venture
knowing that the person is a minor and will be caused to engage
in a commercial sex act. \5\ Thus, American law recognizes the
prevalence of intra-familial sex trafficking and seeks to
specifically combat it. \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ 22 U.S.C. Sec. 7102(10) (2015).
\2\ Sec. 7102(4) (emphasis added).
\3\ Sec. 7102(9).
\4\ 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1591(a)(1) (2018).
\5\ Sec. 1591(a)(2).
\6\ See e.g., The Traffickers, The National Human Trafficking
Hotline, https://humantraffickinghotline.org/what-human-trafficking/
human-trafficking/traffickers (last visited Sept. 25, 2018).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The United States is not alone in this approach to child
sex trafficking. The United States joins with most other
nations in ratifying the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and
Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children,
supplementing the United Nations Convention Against
Transnational Crime (``Palermo Protocol''). This Protocol
defines trafficking in persons even more broadly to include:
the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or
receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or
other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception,
of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of
the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the
consent of a person having control over another person, for the
purpose of exploitation. \7\ Not only does the Palermo Protocol
explicitly identify giving or exchanging benefits to the person
who has control over the trafficking victim, but it defines
exploitation to include ``at a minimum the exploitation of
prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation.''
\8\ As in the United States, the Protocol requires no force if
the victim is a child under the age of 18. \9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ G.A. Res. 55/25, Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish
Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing
the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, at
Art. 3(a) (Nov. 15, 2000) [hereinafter Palermo Protocol].
\8\ Id.
\9\ Id., art. 3(c)-(d). As a signatory to the Protocol, the United
States is required to establish measures to prevent and combat
trafficking in persons. Id. art. 9.
Therefore, sex trafficking occurs under American law when
any person receives a benefit or something of value in exchange
for providing another for a sex act. Internationally, when one
with control over a child receives a benefit in exchange for
consenting to the child's sexual exploitation, sex trafficking
occurs. This language encompasses intra-familial sex
trafficking, which is a significant problem throughout the
world. \10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Press Release, Family Members Linked to Nearly Half of Child
Trafficking: New IOM, Polaris Data, Int'l Off. of Migration (Nov. 28,
2017), https://www.iom.int/news/family-members-linked-nearly-half-
child-traffickingnew-iom-polaris-data (last visited Sept. 25, 2018).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interest of the Commission
Prior to the year 2000, the international community did not
explicitly label human trafficking as the particular form of
sexual exploitation it is today. However, since the Palermo
Protocol and the TVPA, the many manifestations of child sex
trafficking have become more widely understood and documented.
That being said, forms of trafficking previously considered
child sexual assault often remain unidentified and are
addressed purely as child sexual assault cases. While the line
can be obscure between the traditional understanding of child
sexual assault and child sex trafficking, an essential
distinction is the presence of a commercial component. That
commercial component, however, is not limited to a direct
exchange of currency for a sex act. Rather, it encompasses
situations in which any person receives a benefit or something
of value in exchange for a sex act of that or another person.
In the intra-familial trafficking context, that includes when a
family member receives a benefit and consents to their child's
sexual exploitation.
Given the leadership of the United States in combating all
forms of sex trafficking, but particularly child sex
trafficking, the Commission has an interest in paying
particular attention to any indications of child sex
trafficking in this or any case.
In Judge Venckiene's case, assertions have been made that
the child at issue in this case was not only sexually abused,
but that the child's mother was complicit in allowing the
abuse. \11\ In the course of the Commission's review of this
case, should it encounter evidence of this compliance being in
exchange of something of value, or that the victim's mother
received a benefit for her consent to sexually abuse her
daughter, such information would suggest a case involving child
sex trafficking. Complicity in sexual abuse is not in and of
itself trafficking but could, instead, be considered conspiracy
to abuse, a serious enough crime in and of itself. However, if
evidence exists that the abusers provided financial and other
benefits to the mother of the child victim, this child sexual
abuse could also implicate child sex trafficking.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ See Neringa Venckiene v. United States, No. 18-2529 (7th Cir.
2018), Jurisdictional Memo. at 2; Brief and Appendix for Petitioner-
Appellant at 7, 8, 15-16.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the Commission considers the Venckiene case on questions
of extradition and asylum, it may also wish to consider the
possible implications of child sex trafficking, should it
encounter such evidence. While child sexual abuse in all its
forms is an assault on the dignity of a child, the matter of
child sex trafficking is one of import, not only to the United
States, but globally.
Conclusion
Given the leadership of the United States in combatting
trafficking in persons, and Congress' specific role in crafting
comprehensive trafficking legislation and ratifying the Palermo
Protocol, instances of child sex trafficking have great import
in American policy. If evidence of a benefit based compliance
emerges in the Commission's review of any case, such evidence
should be closely examined. Therefore, as the Commission
considers this complex case in its many implications, it also
should examine it through a lens of child sex trafficking,
should the investigation indicate a commercial sex act. As
such, I would suggest whatever remedy the Commission seeks, it
do so within this context.
Prepared Statement of Abbe Jolles
Thank you for the invitation to speak to you today about
the extradition of Judge Niringa Venckiene. My name is Abbe
Jolles. I am an international human rights litigator working
globally. I was the first American woman admitted to the
International Criminal Court and I achieved a landmark decision
at the United Nations Rwanda Tribunal. I am a founding member
of Hear Their Cries, working to end immunity for sexual
assaults, committed by staff members of international
organizations, including the United Nations. I have tried cases
for more than thirty years and I have handled hundreds of
assault cases both felonies and misdemeanors.
I am going to focus on three areas:
1. What constitutes an extraditable offense under
Article 2 of the Extradition Treaty between the United
States and Lithuania.
2. The Extradition Treaty's Article 16 limits on
addition of new charges upon Judge Venckiene's return--
a technical but unenforceable limit.
3. The important proviso that extradition must be
refused when charges are politically motivated under
Article 4.
In 2015 Lithuania demanded extradition of Judge Venckiene
based on an alleged May 2012 assault on a federal officer.
Judge Venckiene fled to the United States in April of 2013 and
immediately filed a request for political asylum which is still
pending. Between the May 2012 alleged assault and her April
2013 flight to the United States, Judge Venckiene was not
arrested. At the time of the extradition demand Judge Venckiene
had been in the United States for two and a half years.
On May 17, 2012 240 federal officers stormed Judge
Venckiene's home to remove her 7 year old niece. It is alleged
that Judge Venckiene and the little girl resisted and that
Judge Venckiene punched a federal officer.
In the United States when a federal officer is feloniously
assaulted, the perpetrator is arrested immediately and jailed
without bond. Here it strains credulity to believe that there
was a serious assault when the perpetrator remained free for an
entire year and then was able to flee the country. Moreover no
extradition request was made for two and a half years after
Judge Venckiene's arrival in the United States.
In the United States these types of assault charges are
often disposed of by way of plea bargains. Fair Trials
International reports that there is no plea bargaining process
in Lithuania.\1\ This further taints the process and presents a
clear and present danger to Judge Venckiene should she be
returned to Lithuania. \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ https://www.fairtrials.org/wp-content/uploads/Criminal-
Proceedings-and-Defence-Rights-in-Lithuania1.pdf 2014, page 6.
\2\ To avoid a trial Lithuania sometimes employs a ``fast tracked
procedure'' called a ``penal order'' an ``abbreviated alternative'' to
a public trial. In a penal order procedure there is no indictment.
Instead the prosecutor asks the Judge to impose sentence after the
Accused admits to the charges. This is essentially a plea without the
bargain. See TRACING THE INSTANCES OF PLEA BARGAINING IN THE LITHUANIAN
CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM, 2018, Simona Garbataviciute, University of
Ljubljana, Faculty of Law, Doctoral Program in Legal Studies,
Criminology, http://www.journals.vu.lt/teise/article/viewFile/11657/
10461, page 138.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The legal filings in this matter indicate that many charges
have been added and subtracted over six years. At this juncture
there is one so called extraditable charge and three related
charges, not extraditable on their own. Technically, pursuant
to Article 16, Lithuania is not permitted to add charges once
Judge Venckiene returns. Practically this is unenforceable.
This is a matter of concern here because Lithuania's original
extradition request contained 14 charges, 10 of which are not
extraditable offenses. In addition during the last six years 39
different charges were alleged, most of which cannot be the
basis of extradition.
There is much evidence that the extradition demand for
Judge Venckiene is politically motivated. When charges are
politically motivated the Secretary of State must refuse
extradition. An ``army'' of 240 federal officers converging on
a private home, to take custody of one little girl, is a
powerful indicator of political motivation. There are many
other indications of political motivation including the nature
of all but one of the 39 charges added over the past 6 years.
Charges such as ``contempt for the memory of the deceased'',
``unauthorized disclosure about a person's private life'',
``abuse of the rights and duties of parents'' and ``complicity
in a criminal act'' are a few of the manufactured, vague,
politically motivated charges.
Press reports indicate that sending Judge Venckiene back to
Lithuania is a likely death sentence and that there is no
chance of a fair trial. \3\ It is notable that Judge
Venckiene's political party, ``The Way of Courage'' seeks
changes in the justice system including implementation of trial
by jury.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-
chicago-area-woman-lithuania-extradition-20180712 story.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is also notable that in 2017 the State Department issued
a report indicating that Lithuanian prisons do not meet
international standards. \4\ Also in 2017 Malta rejected an
extradition request from Lithuania on this basis. \5\ Ireland
has refused to extradite to Lithuania based on substandard
Lithuanian prison conditions as well. The Irish court ruled
that the Accused was likely to be held in ``inhuman and
degrading conditions if extradited.'' \6\ Denmark has refused
extradition to Lithuania finding there was a risk the Accused
would be tortured if returned to face charges. \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/277431.pdf page
1.
\5\ https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20170518/local/
court-turns-down-lithuanian-request-to-extradite-malteseman.648339.
\6\ https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-21043433
\7\ https://www.thelocal.dk/20140709/denmark-refuses-to-extradite-
child-porn-suspect
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In conclusion it is likely that Judge Venckiene will suffer
irreparable harm if she is returned to Lithuania. I am here
today in the hopes that I can help convince you to do
everything in your power to keep Judge Venckiene in the United
States so that her 2013 asylum application, which has an
excellent chance of success, can be decided.
Prepared Statement of Dr. Vytautas Matulevicius
Dear Helsinki Commission Members, Dear meeting
participants.
First of all, I would like to sincerely thank you for
inviting us to this important event and giving us the
opportunity to speak. Thank you for giving your attention to
Lithuania as well.
I will talk about the problem under discussion, based on
one particular conflict. I think that in the history of any
country you can find such cases where like in a mirror all the
main problems of that country are reflected. It is enough to
remember the classic Dreyfus affair in France and the famous
Emile Zola article, and you will understand what I am talking
about. The pedophilia case that shook Lithuanian society, and
the judicial persecution of Neringa Venckiene became such a
mirror in Lithuania.
Until recently, this woman was one of the most popular
politicians in the country, a leader in the parliamentary
party, a symbol of the fight against the court corruption and
maybe even a future president. However, now she is a prisoner
in Chicago prison and she can be deported to Lithuania where
dozens of accusations and uncertain future are awaiting her.
What happened that such a respectable and successful woman who
worked as a judge for 13 years suddenly became an
internationally sought for criminal?
It happened as something that I would not wish on anyone of
you.
One day, her brother's daughter began to tell and visually
demonstrate how her mother's friend and two more men were using
her body. As she always stood on the side of justice, now N.
Venckiene also remained loyal to herself--she began to defend
the child. The scale of such a fight can be judged from the
fact that over the years, she and her brother wrote over 200
complaints and statements to law enforcement and other state
authorities. However, none of the alleged pedophiles ended up
on a defendant's bench.
One of the three men, who worked as a judge, was shot by
someone, the other was not identified, and the third one, who
was the only one against whom the charges of molestation were
brought, on the eve of the court hearing fell from a four-
wheeled motorcycle and drowned in a knee-high puddle of water
(incidentally, he was the assistant to the speaker of
Lithuanian parliament). The girl's father, who became
disappointed due to the inaction of law enforcement, videotaped
his daughter's testimony and began distributing it to
journalists, and he was also found dead.
When the main parties to the proceedings were murdered, or
died in suspicious circumstances, the court tried the deceased
defendant. According to the court, there was no pedophilia, as
the allegations were deliberately made up by the girl's father
who wanted to harm his ex-wife.
This is a short plot of this case. It shows what can happen
to people who are determined to fight against influential
pedophiles who have important connections. Unfortunately, even
in the old European democracies with long legal traditions,
pedophilia cases are faced with enormous difficulties and the
resistance of extremely influential forces. This can be
confirmed by Great Britain's example, where children were
sexually exploited by the famous television star and other
exceptionally high-ranking people for many decades, but their
crimes began to be investigated only in recent years when many
of them were already standing before God's court.
A similar situation was in Belgium where the investigation
of the famous pedophile case also encountered obstacles that
have not yet been seen, and where the case has moved from the
point of death only when hundreds of thousands of people came
to the streets protesting the inactivity of the law enforcement
and the country's parliament decided to step in (the cases of
Marc Dutroux and his wife Michelle Martin).
In Lithuania, which has still not eliminated the flaws and
corrupt practices of the Communist period, the situation is
even more complicated in this respect. And the case of N.
Venckiene itself can be regarded as a typical recurrence of the
Soviet legal system--a person who talks too much about the
crimes of influential people can be turned into a criminal
herself. This was the way that KGB behaved when the facts
brought about by the dissidents, or other truth seekers became
too dangerous for the system. One of the former fighters
against the Soviet regime, Nijole Sadunaite, commented on the
case of N. Venckiene: ``This is the same KGB script.'' By the
way, N. Sadunaite is a Honorary Citizen of the City of Texas,
and she was also awarded by the Republican Party of California
with a medal for her long fight for human rights. This is a
person who knows what she says.
I understand that the Chicago judge who examined the
extradition case of N. Venckiene could not know the specifics
of all post-communist countries and therefore she decided that
the refugee would have every opportunity to defend her rights
in the Lithuanian court. However, for those who know the
specifics, the judge's argument has only caused a bitter smile.
Here, I will list at least some of the main violations of
the norms of international law that N. Venckiene would need to
endure, if she was deported to Lithuania.
First of all, there would be an imminent danger to her
life. I have already mentioned that the pedophilia case in
question has already claimed the lives of at least six people--
including those who were killed or died under suspicious
circumstances. One of the leaders of the prosecutor's office
even publicly described the case as a ``killer,'' but the
protection of the state was appointed not to the victims who
suffered from the actions of pedophiles, but to the mother of
the sexually exploited girl who was supposed to be indicted as
an accomplice in this case based on a court order (however,
prosecutors did not comply with this order). Therefore, there
is a high probability that no appropriate attention will be
given to N. Venckiene's safety this time, and something might
happen to her in a prison cell--as is often the case in
Lithuanian prisons. To send a person to death prohibits not
only the rules of international law, but also elemental
humanitarian principle.
Second. According to the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, every person has the right to a fair and impartial
court hearing (Article 10). If N. Venckiene was returned to
Lithuania, her case would sooner or later be considered by the
Supreme Court, whose chairman G. Kryzevicius publicly named N.
Venckiene ``an abscess in the judicial system.'' In these
words, he preliminarily made it clear that only a verdict that
N. Venckiene is guilty is acceptable, and by doing so he
limited her right to a fair and impartial trial. Although
currently G. Kryzevicius is in charge of another position, he
continues to be a very influential judicial figure--the head of
the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania.
Third. Then the Chairman of the Supreme Court proceeded
even further calling N. Venckiene ``an abscess in the political
system.'' And this was almost an open call for the politicians
to deal with the common enemy who constantly criticized both
the judiciary and the political authorities. This happened when
Mrs. Venckiene was elected to the Seimas of the Republic of
Lithuania. When she, fearing for her own safety, left for the
United States, the Seimas impeached her for not attending
Seimas meetings and expelled her from parliament. This was done
behind her back without giving even a chance to defend herself
and even in violation of the Statute of the Seimas, which has
the power of law. The same principles would be followed if N.
Venckiene was returned to Lithuania, since her fate would be
again in the hands of the same conspired politicians and
judges.
Thank you for your attention! I will be happy to answer
your questions.
Statement of the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania to the United
States of America and to the United
Mexican States
Chairman Wicker, Co-Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Cardin,
Ranking Member Hastings, and distinguished Commissioners,
The Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania is not in a
position to participate in the hearing of the U.S. Helsinki
Commission on September 27, 2018 on the issue of Neringa
Venckiene extradition request. As stated in previous occasions,
we are not entitled to interfere in or attempt to sway legal
processes or intervene in the judicial processes.
Lithuania fully abides by the core tenet of democracy--the
rule of law--and has profound respect for the principle of
judicial independence, which is at the heart of both our
judicial systems, in the United States and in Lithuania.
The Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania expresses its hope
that the Extradition Treaty between the Government of the
Republic of Lithuania and the Government of the United States
of America, concluded on October 23, 2001, will be implemented
in good faith, as per spirit and the letter of the Treaty.
Lithuania has a solid track record of protecting and
defending human rights and combatting human trafficking, both
at home and abroad. Notably, on this latter issue, Lithuania
has been consistently placed among Tier 1 nations in annual US
Department of State Trafficking in Persons Reports.
As a close ally and partner of the United States and a
staunch advocate of the rule of law, human rights, and
democracy, Lithuania has on numerous occasions worked together
with the United States--and the Helsinki Commission
specifically--to safeguard the protection of human rights
defenders, as well as individual freedoms and liberties in
countries under undemocratic, authoritarian rule.
In the spirit of our long-standing cooperation, we remain
ready to respond to the questions and queries of the U.S.
Helsinki Commission on Lithuania's strong democratic governance
and rule of law tradition at an appropriate time and without
prejudice to the ongoing judicial processes.
This is an official publication of the
Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.
< < <
This publication is intended to document
developments and trends in participating
States of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
< < <
All Commission publications may be freely
reproduced, in any form, with appropriate
credit. The Commission encourages
the widest possible dissemination
of its publications.
< < <
http://www.csce.gov @HelsinkiComm
The Commission's Web site provides
access to the latest press releases
and reports, as well as hearings and
briefings. Using the Commission's electronic
subscription service, readers are able
to receive press releases, articles,
and other materials by topic or countries
of particular interest.
Please subscribe today.